







































♦ 


Epochs of Ancient History 

EDITED BY 

REV. G. W. COX, M.A. and CHARLES SANKEY, M. A. 


ROMAN HISTORY—The EARLY EMPIRE 


W. W. CAPES, M.A. 





































































































































ROMAN HISTORY 


THE EARLY EMPIRE 


FROM THE ASSASSINATION OF JULIUS CUESAR 
TO THAT OF DOMITIAN 


BY 

W. W. CAPES, M.A. 

Js&ase&B 

LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF QUEEN’S COLLEGE, AND 
READER IN ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 


WITH TWO MAPS’ 

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NEW YORK: 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 

1888 . 




MAi 2 7 1904 




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CONTENTS. 

- * 0 + — - 


INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

Rapid survey of the history of Rome from the death of Julius 
Caesar to the battle of Actium. PAGE i 


CHAPTER I. 

AUGUSTUS B. C. 31—A. D. 14. 

The change in Octavianus after he gained absolute power, not a 
mere change of Policy, but of temper and demeanor—The 
change in the forms of the constitution—The proposal to resign 
—He avoids the title of king, or of dictator—Had already taken 
the name of Caesar—Is styled Augustus—Takes the old repub¬ 
lican titles—The old offices of the executive—New offices created 
—The Senate—Privy Council—The government of the provinces 
—Senatorial provinces—Imperial provinces—General character 
of the new regime—The homely manners of Augustus—Liberal 
outlay for public objects—Ready acquiescence in these changes 
The chief ministers of Augustus—Agrippa—His energy, self- 
sacrifice—Public works—Marries Marcella—Retires to Lesbos 
—Marries Julia—Dies—Maecenas—His diplomatic skill—The 
chief adviser of Augustus—Influenced the tone of Roman 
circles through the poets—His domestic trials—Livia—Sources 
of her influence over Augustus, and its nature—Suspicion of 
her sinister dealings to secure the succession of Tiberius—Treat- 

V 





VI 


Contents. 


ment of Agrippa Postumus—Story of Livia poisoning Augustus 
—Julia—Her betrothals and marriages—Extravagance and 
profligacy at last made known to her father—Her banishment 
and misery—Disasters in Germany—Defeat of Lollius—Loss 
of Varus with three legions—Panic at Rome, and grief of 
Emperor—Augustus grew morose, and resented criticism— 
Leges majestatis enforced against authors—Ovid—Banished to 
Tomi—Augustus at last less popular at Rome than in the 
provinces—Died at Nola—His survey of the Roman world, 
and summary of offlcial statistics, and advice to his successors 
—The Monumentum Ancyranum—Augustus deified —Expla¬ 
nations: i. Polytheism less scrupulous; 2. Eastern peoples had 
deified their kings; 3. The rationalizing tendency; 4. The 
Italian worship of the Lares especially fostered by Augustus— 
Augustales. , ..page 6 


CHAPTER II. 

TIBERIUS : A.D. 14-37. 

The early life of Tiberius—Little liked by Augustus—His retire¬ 
ment to Rhodes—He wished to return to Rome, but was not 
allowed—His danger and suspense—Livia procures his recall 
and adoption by Augustus—He was usually away from Rome 
with the army—Recalled to the death-bed of Augustus—Pre¬ 
cautions of Livia—Claim to succeed based on adoption and 
tribunicia potestas —Consent of the legions all-important— 
They were in mutiny—Caution of Tiberius, and ambiguous 
language—He shrank from titles of honor and from flattery— 
Referred all business to the Senate, but neglected the popular 
assemblies and the amusements of the people—Seemed anxious 
to govern well—The great influence of Livia, now called 
Augusta—Her politic patronage of art—Tiberius showed 
jealousy of the honor paid to Augusta—Fear of Germanicus, 
who was recalled from Germany and sent on a mission to the 




Contents. 


VII 


East—The appointment of Cn. Piso to be governor of Syria— 
PI is offensive conduct to Germanicus, who believed that he was 
poisoned by Piso—Grief at Rome when the death of Germani¬ 
cus was known—Popular suspicions—The people disliked Ti¬ 
berius from the first—Reasons—The “ delatores ” of the Empire 
now first appeared—Their influence under Tiberius, and in¬ 
crease in numbers—The character of Sejanus—His rise in 
power and favor—He schemed to revenge himself on Drusus 
for the insult of a blow—Seduced Livilla and poisoned Drusus, 
widened the breach between Tiberius and Agrippina, and urged 
Tiberius to leave Rome—Tiberius retired to Caprese—The 
death of Augusta, followed by the fall of Agrippina and her 
children—The fate of Asinius Gallus—The great power of 
Sejanus at Rome, his haughtiness—Suspicions of Tiberius at 
length aroused—His dissimulation—The scene in the Senate- 
house, where the Emperor’s letter is read, and Sejanus is 
dragged off to death—Cruelty of Tiberius—The trials and 
bloodshed at Capreae—His death—The pleas of later critics in 
favor of a new estimate of the character of Tiberius—The testi¬ 
mony of Valerius Maximus and Velleius Paterculus—The 
marks of bias and exaggeration in the common story—The 
assumptions as to the memoirs of Agrippina, and the guilt of 
the victims of Tiberius—Ancient writers have formed too 
harsh an opinion of his motives in some cases, and reported 
scandalous gossip too lightly. PAGE 44 


CHAPTER III. 

CALIGULA : A.D. 37-4I. 

The general joy at the death of Tiberius, and at the succession of 
Caius, named Caligula—The claims of the young grandchild of 
Tiberius were ignored—The general gladness—The Emperor’s 
popularity and sense of power turned his head—He claimed 
divine honors—Could bear no rival greatness, as in the case of 
Seneca and Domitius Afer—Was jealous even of the dead—• 



VIII 


Contents. 


Thought himself raised above moral laws, and indulged in wild 
caprices—His devices to refill his exhausted coffers—Resorted 
to confiscation—Morbid ferocity—The campaign in Germany—* 
Ludicrous close—His wild dreams of massacre . . • 74 


CHAPTER IV. 

CLAUDIUS : A.D. 4I-54. 

The hesitation of the Senate after the murder of Caius—The sol¬ 
diers meantime saluted Claudius Emperor—In early life he had 
been weak in mind and body—He had sorry treatment from 
Tiberius and Caius, and indulged in coarse habits, but he had 
literary tastes—As Emperor he was ruled by wives and freed- 
men—The domestic position of the freedmen of Rome, and in 
the imperial household—Their ambition and greed and oppor¬ 
tunities of gaining wealth—Pallas—Narcissus—Polybius—Cal- 
listus—Felix—Posides—Claudius kept in good humor by his 
freedmen His love for judicial work, and care for provisioning 
Rome—Want of dignity in his proclamations—A campaign 
and victory arranged for him—Scandalous traffic of the freed¬ 
men—They confiscate the property of the rich by working on 
their masters’ fears—His wives—Messalina—Her unbounded 
wantonness and cruelty—At last she causes public scandal by 
marrying Silius—Narcissus tells Claudius, and procures her 
death—Debate among the freedmen as to the choice of a new 
wife—Agrippina, his niece, carried off the prize, and showed at 
once her intention to rule supreme—Had Octavia betrothed to 
herson, and the trusted servants of Britannicus removed—Afraid 
of Narcissus and delay, she had Claudius poisoned—The satire 
of Seneca on the deification of Claudius . . . page 84 



Contents. 


IX 


CHAPTER V. 

NERO; A.D. 54-68. 

The early life of Nero—Saluted as Emperor by the soldiers—His 
mother, Agrippina, tried at first to govern, but Burrhus and 
Seneca took her place and ruled in his name—He showed a 
passion for the fine arts and for low dissipation—His impatience 
of his mother’s restraint—Treatment of Britannicus and Octavia 
—The attempts to poison Agrippina failed—The dark scheme 
to drown her in the Bay of Naples—Its failure followed by her 
murder—Burrhus and Seneca defended the deed—Nero gave 
himself up to his pleasures, drove freeborn Romans on the 
stage, and at last appeared on it himself—Nero had a real love 
of art, but the art was bad*—Nero’s extravagant display, espe¬ 
cially in building—The great fire of Rome—The strange rumors 
of his conduct and suspicions—He had the “ Golden House” 
built for him—Its most privileged inmates—To turn suspicion 
from himself Nero made the Christians his victims and his 
scapegoats—His victims generally of a higher rank—His aunt 
—His wife Octavia—Poppcea—Burrhus—Seneca spared for a 
time—Philosophers were looked on with distrust—Stoicism 
especially distasteful to the prince, but spread rapidly through 
society—The character and fate of Thrasea Poetus, of Seneca, 
and of Corbulo—Other victims—Lucan fell into disgrace at 
court—Took part in a conspiracy and lost both life and honor 
—Petronius Arbiter excited the jealousy of Tigellinus, and died 
with frivolous indifference—The rising in Britain and great loss 
of life and other disasters of the time—The revolt of Vindex in 
Gaul, taken up by Galba after the death of Vindex—Nero’s in¬ 
difference at first, followed by despair—He fled to a freedman’s 
house and hid himself, then at last found nerve to kill himself—• 
Strange affection for his memory shown by some of the popu¬ 
lace—Pretenders appeared in his name . . . PAGE 104 


X 


Contents. 


CHAPTER VI. 

GALBA : A.D. 68-69. 

The career of Galba before his accession—As governor of Spain he 
had only a small force—Rival pretenders rose and fell, and 
Galba made his way to Rome without a struggle, but preceded 
by ugly rumors—Discontent of the marines, praetorians, legion¬ 
aries, and city populace, of Nero’s servants and favorites, and 
of the Senate—The favorites of Galba shamelessly abuse their 
power—Galba adopted Piso as his colleague, but Otho intrigued 
with the soldiers of the guard, and was saluted Emperor—Galba 
set out for the camp, but while on his way was set upon and 
killed, and Piso, who had fled to sanctuary, was killed at the 
temple steps.128 


CHAPTER VII. 
otho : A.D. 69. 

Otho’s early career of dissipation—Of better repute in provincial 
rule—Returned to Rome with Galba and displaced him—He 
gained the soldiers’ loyalty and love—But the armies of the 
Rhine had chosen Vitellius, and were on the march to Rome—- 
After fruitless overtures of peace, Otho marched to meet them 
—His generals urged delay, but he would not wait—His army 
was routed on the battle-field of Bedriacum, and he died by his 
own hand. PAGE 134 


CHAPTER VIII. 

VITELLIUS: A.D. 69. 

The antecedents of Vitellius—Sent by Galba to command the 
army on the Rhine—Glutton and spendthrift though he was he 
won the affections of the soldiers—Valens and Caecina, being 





Contents. 


XI 


disaffected to Galba, stir the army and put Vitellius forward ; 
he is proclaimed Emperor—The march into Italy and victory 
of Bedriacum—The entry into Rome of the soldiers of the 
Rhine with Vitellius—His favorites governed while he feasted 
—But in the East Vespasian was soon in arms—The treachery 
of Bassus and Caecina, and second battle of Bedriacum—Sad 
fate of Cremona—Vitellius tried to abdicate but was prevented 
by the soldiers, who stormed the Capitol—In the fray the 
temple of Jupiter was burnt—Antonius entered Rome and 
slaughtered the Vitellians—Vitellius was dragged from his 
hiding-place and slain. PAGE 139 


CHAPTER IX. 

VESPASIAN ; A.D. 69-79. 

The humble origin and chequered career of Vespasian—He is 
sent to command in Judaea—He showed his skill and won the 
soldiers’ trust—Titus and Mucianus pressed him to make him¬ 
self Emperor, and he consented with reluctance—The rebellion 
in Gaul and Germany ; Its causes, early successes, and speedy 
failure—Vespasian restored order at Rome—The causes of the 
insurrection in Judaea, and earlier relations of the Jews to 
Rome—A hasty rising at Jerusalem spread widely till Vespa¬ 
sian was sent to command the army—The siege of Jerusalem 
was left to Titus to finish—The obstinate defence and utter 
destruction of the city and temple—The triumph after the 
Jewish war as described by Josephus—The economy and 
homely tastes of Vespasian—He needed and raised a large 
revenue, and imposed new tolls and taxes—But the money 
was well used for public objects—He was free from jealousy 
and suspicion, yet was persuaded to put to death Helvidius 
Priscus, and also J. Sabinus, in spite of the story of his wife’s 
faithful love—Vespasian worked hard and died in harness— 
The characteristic jest at his funeral . . . page 147 



XII 


Contents , 


CHAPTER X. 
titus: a.d. 79-81. 

The bright prospects of the early life of Titus—His ambitious 
hopes and intrigues in Judaea—Skill in the siege and cruelty to 
the prisoners—He shared the imperial power with his father, 
and studied magnificence of outward show—Money was spent 
largely on great works—His relations with Berenice were so 
unpopular that he had to yield—Sinister rumors about him—• 
The change after his father’s death—His courtesy and liberality 
made him loved, and universally lamented—The disasters of 
the time—The eruption of Vesuvius—The account of the 
younger Pliny—The scene at Pompeii, and various forms of 
death and ruin—The objects since collected . . PAGE 162 


CHAPTER XI. 

DOMITIAN ; A.D. 81-96. 

Domitian’s early life and danger from the soldiers—Sudden change 
turned his head—He was kept in strict tutelage by Vespasian 
—He ill requited the tenderness of Titus—'His power of self- 
restraint as Emperor and wish to rule well—He discouraged 
informers and legacies to himself—The probable causes of the 
marked change of temper—His complete failure as a general—■ 
Conspiracy against him—Want of money—His numerous 
victims—The Philosophers—Apollonius of Tyana—The gene¬ 
rals— Julius Agricola — Literary men — Martial — Statius — 
Juvenal—Tacitus—Domitian assassinated by his wife and 
freedmen .. PAGE 171 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE POSITION OF THE EMPEROR. 

The Emperor virtually the source of law; he interprets the law, 
and enforces it, as head of the executive—His powers unique 





Contents. 


XIII 


in kind, without check or balance—There was no escape from 
the Emperor’s power, nor for him—His power was based on 
military force, but his policy was commonly not warlike— 
Little police force needed. PAGE 181 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE RIGHTS OF ROMAN CITIZENSHIP. 

The citizens of Rome a mixed race—Their rights and privileges— 
Jus Suffragii—Jus honorum—Right of appeal—Immunity from 
personal violence—Jus exilii—Freedom of speech and writing 
—Religious liberty—Right of Assembly—Right to food . 184 


CHAPTER XIV. 

LIFE IN THE PROVINCES. 

Great variety of political status in the provincial towns, and large 
amount of self-rule—Scanty reference in literature to the life of 
the provincial towns—Fuller details in the inscriptions—The 
executive officials, duumviri juri dicundo, sediles, quaestors, 
quinquennales—The town council or ordo decurionum—Popu¬ 
lar assemblies—Offices were burdensome rather than lucrative 
—Public spirit and munificence—The attractions of Roman 
culture—The liberal outlay of the rich lightened the burdens of 
local government—General well-being—Evidences of improve¬ 
ment and of prosperity—But no guarantees of permanence 

PAGE 190 


CHAPTER XV. 

THE STATE OF TRADE. 

The early contempt for industrial art at Rome—The contempt ex¬ 
tended to professions and the fine arts—Disdain of retail trade 
did not extend to commerce on a large scale—Growth of a class 





XIV 


Conte7its. 




of merchant capitalists who enrich themselves without benefit 
to the world—What the Empire did for trade— 1 1 secured the 
roads and seas—Confined war to the frontiers—Removed a 
variety of hindrances—Diminished indirectly the supply of slave 
labor—Lessened the competition of war and politics—The 
Emperors favored the higher branches of industrial art—Influ¬ 
ence of Eastern sentiment—The higher status given to industrial 
classes through magistri vicorum—A vast system of free trade 
flourished—Balance of trade against Italy . . PAGE 202 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THE GROWING DEPOPULATION OF ITALY AND GREECE. 

The ominous signs of depopulation—Strabo’s account of Greece— 
Polybius notices the diminishing military force of Italy—Re¬ 
marks of Livy—Pliny—Dion Cassius—Attempts of Augustus 
to meet the evil—The causes of decline; 1. War; 2. Changes 
from peasant proprietors to large estates with slave labor; 
3. Slavery was wasteful of life; 4. Attraction of town life 
and discouragement to industry; 5. Influence of vice and 
profligacy. PAGE 209 


CHAPTER XVII. 

THE FRONTIERS AND THE ARMY. 

The frontiers well defined—Dependent kingdoms and diplomatic 
relations—The pacific policy of the Empire—The standing 
army of Augustus, and the stations of the legions and of the 
fleets—The legions recruited from the distant provinces were 
loyal and steadfast, and attached by many ties to their camp— 
The moral qualities fostered in the camps by work and disci¬ 
pline—Two examples of the break-down of discipline—The pay 
and pensions of the soldiers and “ missio honesta" . PAGE 216 





Contents. 


xv 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE MORAL STANDARD OF THE AGE. 

The natural tendency to believe that there was a moral decline in 
the first century of the Empire; I. But satire is not fair evi¬ 
dence; 2. Juvenal was too vehement to be fair; 3. Literature 
deals with the life of Rome ; 4. Complaints about luxury need 
to be carefully weighed : 5. Philosophy becomes a great moral 
power—the case of Seneca ; 6. The change of tone and thought 
on the subject of slavery; 7. The change in the estimate of 
women’s character; 8. The evidence of a higher tone in 
Pliny’s letters. PAGE 223 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE REVIVAL OF RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 

Religion seemed to be losing its hold on the Romans of education 
—The policy of Augustus to strengthen the old religion—Rea¬ 
sons for believing that the reaction left enduring traces ; 1. The 
legends might be given up without loss of religious faith; 2. 
The tone of philosophy was earnest and devout; 3. The intro¬ 
duction of new creeds and rites; 4. The change in the literary 
tone ; 5. Monumental evidence—Paganism died hard PAGE 232 


INDEX 


PAGE 237 










The Chief Original Authorities for the History of the 

First Century. 


Appian, “ Civil Wars ” : for the period of the civil struggle. 

Dion Cassius, “ Roman History.” 

Inscriptionum Latinarum Corpus: Auctortate Acad. Berol. ed. 
Josephus: for the Jewish war. 

“Monumentum Ancyranum v. Res. gestae divi Augusti ’: ed. Th. 
Mommsen. 

Pliny, " Letters” : for the close of the period. 

Plutarch, “ Lives of Julius Caesar, Cicero, Antonius, M. Brutus 
Galba, Ctho.” 

Seneca, in the historical illustrations of his moral treatises. 
Suetonius, “ Lives of the Caesars.” 

Tacitus, “Annals and Histories.” 

Velleius Paterculus, for the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. 

Of the poets: Horace, Juvenal, and Martial especially illustrate 
the history of the period. 


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ROMAN HISTORT . 


THE EARLIER EMPIRE. 


INTRODUCTION. 

The genius and statesmanship, of Julius Caesar secured 
only a few years of absolute power, and had not time 
enough to shape the forms of empire, or „ 

^ A A Rapid survey 

carry out far-reaching plans. When he fell of the history 

under the daggers of his murderers, he left the death of 
no system of established rule, and no sue- ^hebattkof 
cessor to replace him. The Commonwealth A ctium. 
had been discredited by years of impotence ; anarchy at 
home, misgovernment abroad had shown the break¬ 
down of the ancient institutions of the state, and the frail 
plant of liberty needed more to bring it back to healthy 
life than to be watered with the blood of Caesar. But 
when the young Octavius left his books at Apollonia, 
and came to Rome to claim his rights, few could have 
had serious fears of his ambition, or could have foreseen 
in him the man who was to close the drama of the great 
Republic and bring the empire on the stage. For he 
had played no part as yet in public life, was known to 
be of feeble health, had given no proof of genius or of 
self-reliant courage. Sent on before to the advanced 




2 


The Earlier Empire. 


B.C. 44-3I. 


camp in Epirus, to be ready for campaigns in the far 
East, he was startled from his round of rhetoric and drill 
by the news of his great uncle’s murder. He crossed the 
sea without delay ; and hearing on his way 
that his kinsman’s will had named him heir, 
he took at once the name of Caesar Octavianus, and 
hurried on to claim his heritage at Rome. His mother 
told him of her fear, his stepfather urged the need of 
caution, and pointed to the dangers in his way ; but he 
persisted, though almost alone, and though he saw the 
need to be resolute and wary. The daggers that had 
been sharpened against Julius might be drawn upon him¬ 
self, if he spoke too openly of vengeance, or appealed at 
once to the soldiers and the people. The name that he 
had just assumed had an ominous sound in the ears of 
Senate and of nobles; and M. Antonius, the old confi¬ 
dant and partisan of Cassar, by right of his authority as 
consul, had taken the reins of power into his hands, had 
gained possession of the treasures and the papers of the 
fallen ruler, and was in no mood to share them with a 
rival claimant. The conduct of Octavianus, though bold, 
was very politic and far-sighted. Resolved at any cost 
to show respect for the last wishes of his kinsman, he 
drew largely on the means of his family or friends to pay 
the legacies bequeathed by Caesar to every citizen of 
Rome, and defrayed even the expenses of the public 
shows that had been promised. He paid his court with 
tact to the members of the Senate, and talked of amnes¬ 
ty and peace ; put on a show of winning deference for 
the leaders of the moderate party, and for Cicero above 
all, and fed their hopes, that they might find in his grow¬ 
ing popularity a harmless counterpoise to the violent am¬ 
bition of Antonius. Even when forced at last to arm in 
self-defence, and to levy troops among the veterans of 


B.C. 44-31. 


Introduction. 


3 


Caesar, he courted the old statesman still; he played upon 
his vanity, and called him father. Affecting to draw his 
sword only in defence of the constitution and the 
Senate, he offered to serve with his own legions under 
the new consuls against Antonius, the common enemy 
of all loyal citizens. But he clearly read the jealous sus¬ 
picions of the nobles, and had no mind to be used awhile 
and then thrown aside like a dishonored 

B C 43 

tool. So, after the successes won at Mutina, 
which cost the lives of both the consuls, he flung away 
the mask that he had worn, came to terms of union with 
Antonius and with Lepidus, the governor of Gaul, and 
marched with his soldiers straight to Rome to wrest the 
consulship from the reluctant Senate. Then the era of 
Proscriptions opened, for the confederates agreed to ce¬ 
ment their league with blood. Each marked his victims’ 
names upon the fatal list, and each consented to give up 
adherents of his own to the greed or hatred of his col¬ 
leagues. Meanwhile the Senatorian party, crushed at 
Rome, was gathering fresh strength beyond the seas. 
Brutus in Macedonia, Cassius in Syria, the foremost of 
the murderers of Caesar, had turned the provinces which 
they governed into one vast recruiting-ground for a last 
decisive struggle. When all was ready they combined 
their forces and offered battle to the enemies who had 
crossed over to attack them. Once more 

. 1 r • 1 • . • u.c. 4 2 * 

came the crash of mighty armies met again 

in civil war, and the battle-fields of Philippi saw the fall 

of the last of the great republicans of Rome. 

The world lay prostrate at the conquerors’ feet; it re¬ 
mained only to divide the spoil. Antonius stayed behind 
to organize and rule the East. The Province of Africa was 
thought enough to content the absent Lepidus, while Italy 
and all the West fell to the portion of Octavianus. 


4 


The Earlier Empire. 


B.C. 44-3I. 


But still as the young schemer mounted higher the 
dangers seemed to thicken in his path, to test his hardi¬ 
hood and patient statecraft. He returned to Italy to find 
an exhausted treasury and half-ruined people; veterans 
clamoring for their pay and settling with fierce eager¬ 
ness upon the promised lands; peasants ousted from 
their homes, taken to brigandage from sheer despair ; 
the city populace in no loyal mood to a master who had 
little to bestow; while the wife and brother of his rival 
fanned the smouldering discontent, and vexed him sorely 
with intrigues, then flew to arms at last, and when beaten 
stood sullenly at bay within the beleagured fortress of 
Perusia. The sea meanwhile was at the 
b- c. 41- mercy of the bold Sextus Pompeius, who 

scoured the coasts of Italy with galleys manned by 
motley crews of republicans who had fought under his 
father’s lead, of pirates to whom that father’s name had 
been once a sound of terror, of ruined victims of the 
late proscriptions, of slaves and runaways of every class. 
The corn-ships dared not venture near the blockaded 
ports, and prices mounted to famine height, till the 
starving population rose in fierce mutiny against their 
ruler ; while Antonius was on his way with a great fleet to 
call him to account for the treatment of his brother, who 
had hardly escaped with life from the horrors of the 
siege. But Italy was sick of civil war. The soldiers, 
tired of constant bloodshed, made their leaders sheath 
their swords and join in league and amity, in pledge of 
which Antonius took to wife Octavia, the sister of his 
rival, while Sextus bargained as the price of peace to 
keep his hold upon the islands and the sea, and Lepi- 
dus, displaced already from his office of command, held 
only in his feeble grasp the dignity and functions of High 
Pontiff. 


B.C. 44-31. 


Introduction. 


5 


For six more years of divided power Octavianus 
schemed, and toiled, and waited. He secured his hold 
on Italy, calmed the elements of disorder in its midst, 
refilled the treasury and stocked the granaries, till he felt 
himself strong enough to defy Sextus on the seas and 
crush the bold buccaneer after many a hard-fought strug j 
gle. At last, but not till all was safe elsewhere, came the cri¬ 
sis of the duel with Antonius. Eastern luxury had done its 
work upon his passionate nature. Slothful self-indulg¬ 
ence, broken only by fitful moods of fiery energy, clouded 
his reason and unnerved his manhood. The Egyptian 
Cleopatra had lured him with her blandishments and 
wound her snares around his heart, till Rome heard with 
indignation of the wrongs of the forsaken wife and of the 
orgies of the wanton pair. Nay, more, they heard that 
not content with parodying the names and attributes of 
foreign gods, they claimed the right to change the seat of 
empire and make Alexandria the new capital of the 
Roman world. Was the dignity of a chaste matron, it 
was asked, to be the sport of the minions of an Eastern 
court ? Should Octavianus tamely wait to see the na¬ 
tional honor further outraged, and the monstrous forms 
of uncouth worships install themselves, within the Seven 
Hills and drive the old deities from their venerable 
shrines ? The personal quarrel was transformed into a 
war of creeds and races. In place of the horrors of a 
civil struggle men thought only of the motley aggregate 
of foreign peoples arrayed at Actium in the extravagance 
of barbaric pomp against the discipline and valor of the 
West. 

In the actual conflict Antonius displayed neither a 
general’s skill nor a soldier’s courage. He fought, seem¬ 
ingly, to cover a retreat that had been 
planned before. Cleopatra’s galleys gave the 


6 


The Earlier Empire. 


B.C. 31- 


si'jnal for the flight, and the leader of what was now a 
hopeless cause hastened after her to Egypt, where he 
found discontent and treachery spread around him. 
After a few months spent in moody despair or riotous 
excesses he died by his own hand, to be soon followed 
by his paramour to his dishonored grave. 


CHAPTER I. 

AUGUSTUS: B.C. 31—A.D. 1 4. 

The victory of Actium had made Octavianus the undis¬ 
puted master of the Roman world. One by one rivals 
and obstacles had been swept away, and the 
patient schemer had now mounted to the top¬ 
most round of the ladder of ambition. Dur¬ 
ing the troublous years of the long struggle 
for power his public life had been one 
course of selfish aims, unscrupulous acts, and makeshift 
policy ; he had yet to prove that there was anything of 
real and abiding greatness in his schemes to raise him 
from the ranks of mere political adventurers. But from 
this time we may trace a seeming change of character, 
which is the more remarkable because it is so hard to 
parallel. 

It was no change of measures only, such as often comes 
with new conditions, such as that which 
changcToF made the founder of the dynasty reverse 

policy, much of the policy of earlier years. 

For, spendthrift and prodigal as Julius had been be¬ 
fore, he used his power to curtail extravagance, sent 
police agents to the markets, and even to the houses of 


The remark¬ 
able change 
in Octavi¬ 
anus after he 
gained abso¬ 
lute power 



—a.d. 14. 


Augustus. 


7 


the wealthy, to put down luxury by force; the leader of 
the popular party forbade the growth of guilds and social 
clubs like those which had often carried the elections 
in his favor; the favorite of the populace was anxious to 
check the pride of pauperism by sterner measures ; the 
revolutionary general whose tent had been the refuge of 
the men of tarnished name and ruined fortunes baffled 
all their hopes of plunder, by passing stringent measures 
to restore credit and to curb official greed. Octavianus 
also in like case resorted to like policy. One of his first 
cares was to repeal the unconstitutional acts of his earlier 
life, and so to close the period of revolution. He took 
steps without delay to restore order and to strengthen 
the moral safeguards which years of anarchy and civil 
war had almost ruined. To this end he passed laws like 
those of Julius, and, unlike his kinsman, was enabled by 
his long tenure of power to carry out a conservative reform 
in morals and religion which left some enduring traces. 

But the change in character lay deeper far than this. 
He had shown while the struggle lasted a cruelty with¬ 
out excuse. Though possibly reluctant at 
the first to engage in the proscriptions, he is and demeanor* 
said to have acted in them more relentlessly 
than either of his colleagues ; he had his prisoners of 
war butchered in cold blood, mocked at their prayers for 
decent burial, and calmly watched their dying agonies. 

That he was hard and pitiless beyond'the spirit of his 
times is implied in many stories of the day, and among 
others we read that when the captives of Philippi passed 
in bonds before their conquerors they saluted Antonius 
with marked respect, but vented their deepest curses on 
Octavianus to his face. 

But after Actium he showed what was for that age an 
unusual clemency. He spared his open enemies, he 


8 


The Earlier Empire. 


B.C. 31- 


hunted out no victims, and professed even to burn the 
secret papers of his rival which might have compromised 
his partisans at Rome. The same gentler spirit breathes 
through the whole of his long period of rule. His jeal¬ 
ous intolerance had led him once to drive a consul elect 
to suicide for a bitter word, and to fine or banish citizens 
of Nursia for honoring with a monument their dead who 
had fallen, as they wrote, in defence of freedom on the 
field of Mutina. But he was ready now to show respect 
to the memory of Pompeius, to let historians write the 
praises of the great republicans of Rome, to congratu¬ 
late the men of Mediolanum (Milan) for prizing the 
busts of Brutus, to listen calmly to the gibes vented on 
himself in popular satires or in dead men’s wills, to let 
even lampoons be scattered in the Senate House, and 
make no effort to hunt out the authors. His suspicious 
fears had made him once give orders for the instant ex¬ 
ecution of a curious bystander who had pressed in too 
eagerly to hear him speak in public, and put even to the 
torture a praetor who came to greet him, and whose hid¬ 
den note book was mistaken for a dagger; but in later 
life he walked without an escort through the streets, 
went to and fro to join the social gatherings of his 
friends, and showed no fear of an assassin’s knife. The 
cheerful cordiality and homely courtesies of his maturer 
age were a marked contrast to the cold, ungenial reserve 
of earlier days; and those who find his real character 
hard to read may see perhaps a fitting symbol of it in the 
figure of the Sphinx which he wore upon his signet-ring. 

But this change of manner could not be an easy thing, 
and was probably not soon effected. There are signs 
The change which seem to show that constant watchful¬ 
ly too great ness an( } se lf-restraint were needed to curb 

to be easily 

made. his natural temper, and that personal influ- 


—A. D. 14. 


Augustus. 


9 


ences were at work to help him. Though he was patient 
and merciful in most cases that were brought before him 
when on the seat of judgment, it is said that Maecenas, 
who was standing by, marked on one occasion the old 
blood-thirsty instinct reappear, and flung to him a hasty 
note with the words “ Rise, Hangman ! ” written on it. 
Another time, when stung by what was ut- Called for 
tered in the Senate, he hurried out abruptly, ^ c ^ e ^ ness 
and excused himself afterwards for want of restraint, 
courtesy by saying that he feared his anger would slip 
from his control. We are told that with others com¬ 
monly, and even with Livia, his wife, he would not al¬ 
ways trust himself to speak on subjects of grave mo¬ 
ment without writing down the notes of what he had to 
say. In the gloom that settled on him in old age, when 
family losses and dishonor, coupled with national disas¬ 
ters, weighed upon his mind, the hard, unlovely features 
of his character, long hidden out of sight, seemed to 
come to light once more as the force of self-control was 
weakened by the laws of natural decay. Yet even with 
such reserves his history presents a spectacle almost un¬ 
exampled of the force of will in moulding and temper¬ 
ing an ungenial nature, and of the chastening influence 
of sovereign rule. The signal victory just won, the hon¬ 
ors voted by the servile Senate, the acclamations of the 
people, the license of unbounded power, might well 
have turned his head, as they proved fatal to the temper 
of many a later emperor ; but the dagger of Brutus 
haunted his memory and warned him to beware of out¬ 
raging Roman feeling. 

But, far beyond its effect upon his personal bearing, 
we may trace the influence of these warning memories 
on the work which lay before him, of giving The change in 
shape and system to the future government ^ n f °™ s ti ° f n the 


IO 


Tlie Earlier E?npire. 


b.c. 31- 


of Rome. Power and repute had passed away from 
the old forms of the Republic. The whole world lay 
at the feet of the master of many legions; it re¬ 
mained only to define the constitutional forms in which 
the new forces were to work. But to do this was no easy 
task. The perplexities of his position, the fears and hopes 
that crossed his mind, are thrown into dramatic form by 
the historian. Dion Cassius, who brings a scene before our 
The debate fancy in which Octavianus listens to the 
ject^n Dion conflicting counsels of his two great advisers 
Cassius. Agrippa and Maecenas. The former is sup¬ 

posed to paint in sombre colors the difficulties of a 
monarch’s lot, to remind him of the warnings of the 
past and the dangers of the future, and strongly to 
urge him to copy the example set by Sulla, and after 
passing needful laws, and strengthening the safeguards 
against anarchy and license, to resign the outward 
show of power and come down from the dizzy pinnacle 
of greatness. Maecenas, on the other hand, counsels 
absolute rule, though masked by constitutional dis¬ 
guises and describes at great length a system of cen¬ 
tralized government, in sketching which the historian 
drew mainly from the experience of his own later times, 
and with slight regard for historic truth, attributed 
to the inventive genius of Maecenas a full-grown system 
of political machinery which took some centuries of 
imperialism to develop. But though we must regard the 
narrative in question more as the writer’s own political 
theorizing than as a sketch of matter of fact, yet there is 
little doubt that the schemes of resignation were at some 
time discussed by the Emperor and by his circle of ad¬ 
visers. It is even possible, as the same writer tells us, 
™ , that he laid before the Senators at this time 

to resign. some proposal to leave the helm of state and 


-A.D. 14. Augustus. II 

let them guide it as of old. We are told that they were 
thrown into confusion by his words, and that, mistrust¬ 
ing his sincerity, or fearing the return of anarchy and 
the scramble for power that would soon ensue, they all 
implored him to withdraw his words and take back the 
power which he had resigned. The scene, if ever really 
acted, was but an idle comedy, and the offer could scarcely 
have been seriously meant, though there may have been 
some passing thought of it even at this time and still 
more at a later period, when he had long been sated with 
power and burdened with the cares of office. It is more 
probable that he was content with some faint show of 
resistance, when the Senate heaped their honors on 
his head, as afterwards when, more than once, after a 
ten years’ interval they solemnly renewed the tenure of 
his power. 

But we cannot doubt his sincerity in one respect—in 
his wish to avoid the kingly title and all the odious 
associations of the name. It had been from 
early times offensive to Roman ears ; it had wishe-Tto 
grown far more so as they heard more of the ^leofKing 
wanton lust and cruelty and haughtiness of 
Eastern monarchs, and they scorned to be degraded 
themselves to the level of their cringing subjects. The 
charge of aspiring to be king had often been an ominous 
cry in party struggles, and had proved fatal to more than 
one great leader; it had been truly said perhaps of 
Caesar, and had largely helped to ruin him, and his suc¬ 
cessor was too wary to be dazzled by the bauble of a 
name. He shrank also from another title, truly Roman 
in its character, but odious since the days of 
Sulla; and though the populace of Rome, tatof DlC " 
when panic-struck by pestilence and famine, 
clamored to have him made dictator, and threatened to 


12 


The Earlier Empire . 


b.c. 31- 


Had already 
taken the 
name of 
Caesar. 


burn the Senate as it sat in council if their will was not 
obeyed, yet nothing would induce him to bear the hate¬ 
ful name. But the name of Caesar he had 
taken long ago, after his illustrious uncle’s 
death, and this became the title first of the 
dynasty and then of the imperial office. 
Besides this he allowed himself to be styled Augustus, a 
name which roused no jealousy and outraged no Roman 
sentiment, yet vaguely implied some dignity and rever¬ 
ence from its long association with the objects of religion. 

As such he preferred it to the suggested 
Is styled. name of Romulus, and allowed one of the 

Augustus. 

months to be so called after him, as the 
preceding one of Julius had been named after his kins¬ 
man. With this exception he assumed no new symbol 
of monarchic power, but was satisfied with the old official 
titles, which though charged with memories of the Re¬ 
public, yet singly corresponded to some side 
or fragment of absolute authority. The first 
of these was Imperator, which served to 
Imperator. connect him with the army. The imperium 

which the name expressed, has stood in earlier days for 
the higher functions, more especially for the power of 
the sword, which belonged to civil as well as military 
authority. But, gradually curtailed in other cases by the 
jealousy of the republic, it had kept its full meaning only 
in the camp ; the imperator was the general in command, 
or, in a still more special case, he was the victorious 
leader whose soldiers had saluted him upon the field of 
battle. Julius, whose veterans had often greeted him with 
this title in many a hard-fought campaign, chose it 
seemingly as a fitting symbol of the new r&gime> as a 
frank avowal of its military basis, and in this sense it was 
found convenient by his successors. It implied<absolute 


Takes the 
old repub¬ 
lican titles. 


—A.D. 14. 


Augustus. 


!3 


Tribunicia 

Potestas. 


authority, such as the general has over his soldiers, and 
the concentration in a single chief of the wide-spread 
powers entrusted to subordinate commanders; it sug¬ 
gested little of the old forms of constitutional election, 
but appealed rather to the memory of the army’s loyal 
acclamations, and gave seeming claim to their entire 
obedience. 

The title of the tribunician power connected the 
monarch with the interest of the lower orders. In the 
early days of privilege, when Rome was 
parted into rival classes, the tribunes had 
been the champions of the commons. Sa¬ 
crosanct, or inviolate themselves, and armed with power 
to shield the weak from the license of magistrate or noble, 
they gradually assumed the right to put a veto or check 
on all public business in Rome. In the party struggles 
of the last century of the republic they had abused their 
constitutional powers to destroy the influence of the 
Senate and organize the popular movement against the 
narrow oligarchy of the ruling classes. Such authority 
was too important to be overlooked or intrusted in its 
fulness into other hands. The emperor did not, indeed, 
assume the tribunate, but was vested with the tribunician 
power which overshadowed the annual holders of the 
office. It made his person sacred, not in the city only 
or in discharge of official acts, as in their case, but at all 
times and through the whole breadth of the empire. It 
gave him the formal right to call the meetings of the 
Senate, and to lay before them such business as he 
pleased, and thus secured the initiative in all concerns of 
state. Out of the old privilege of appeal to the protec¬ 
tion of a tribune came the right of acquittal in judicial 
functions, which made the Emperor a high court ot ap¬ 
peal from all the lower courts, and out of which seem- 

C 


14 


The Earlier Empire. 


B.c. 31- 


Princeps. 


ingly has grown the right of pardon vested in the kings 
of modern Europe. The full meaning and extension of 
the title seems not to have been discerned at once, but 
once grasped it was too important to be dropped. By it 
succeeding emperors dated the tenure of their power, as 
by the years of a king’s reign, and the formal act by 
which the title was conferred on the kinsman or the con¬ 
fidant who stood nearest to the throne seemed to point 
him out for succession to the imperial rank. 

The familiar name of prince v/as one of dignity rather 
than of power. The “ princeps senatus ” in old days 
had been the foremost senator of his time, 
distinguished by weight of character and the 
experience of high rank, early consulted in debate, and 
carrying decisive influence by his vote. No one but the 
Emperor could fill this position safely, and he assumed 
the name henceforth to connect him with the Senate, as 
other titles seemed to bind him to the army and the 
people. 

For the post of Supreme Pontiff, Augustus was con¬ 
tent to wait awhile, until it passed by death from the 
feeble hands of Lepidus. He then claimed 
MaxhnusT t ^ ie exclusive tenure of the office, and after 
this time Pontifex Maximus was always added 
to the long list of imperial titles. It put into his hands, 
as the highest functionary of religion, the control of all 
the ritual of the State; it was a convenient instrument 
for his policy of conservative reform, and associated 
with his name some of the reverence that gathered round 
the domain of spiritual life. Besides these titles to which 
he assumed an exclusive right he also filled occasionally 
and for short periods most of the republican offices of 
higher rank, both in the capital and in the coun¬ 
try towns. He took from time to time the consular 


—A.D. 14. 


A ugustus. 


15 


Censoria. 


power, with its august traditions and impo- Co Po J| st ^ 
sing ceremonial. The authority of censor 
lay ready to his hands when a moral reform was to be 
set on foot, and a return attempted to the 
severity of ancient manners, or when the 
Senate was to be purged of unworthy members and the 
order of the equites or knights to be reviewed and its 
dignity consulted. Beyond the capital the 
proconsular power was vested in him with- ^ r r ; s consu * 
out local limitations, and gave him the right 
to issue his instructions to the commanders of the legions, 
as the great generals of the republic had done before. 
Finally he deigned often to accept offices of local dignity 
in the smaller towns throughout the empire, appointing 
in each case a deputy to discharge the duties of the post. 
The offices of the State of Rome, meantime, lasted on 
from the Republic to the Empire, unchanged 
in name, and with little seeming change of offices of th& 

functions. Consuls, Praetors, Quaestors, executive. 
Tribunes, and ^Ediles rose from the same classes as be¬ 
fore, and moved for the most part in the same round of 
work, though they had lost forever their power of inis 
tiative and real control. Elected by the people formerly 
but with much sinister influence of bribery and auguries, 
they were now mainly the nominees of Caesar, though 
the forms of popular election were still for a time ob¬ 
served, and though Augustus condescended to canvass 
in person for his friends and to send letters of commen¬ 
dation for those whom he wished to have elected. The 
consulship was entirely reserved for his nominees, but 
passed rapidly from hand to hand, since in order to 
gratify a larger number it was granted at varying intervals 
for a few months only. For though it was in fact a poli¬ 
tical nullity henceforth, and its value lay mainly in the 


r 6 


The Earlier E?npire. 


B.C. 31- 


evidence of imperial favor or its prospects of provincial 
office, yet the old dignity lasted still, and for centuries 
the post was spoken of by Romans as almost the 
highest prize of their ambition. For lower posts a dis¬ 
tinction was observed between the places, generally one- 
half, reserved entirely for the Emperor to fill with his 
candidati Ccesaris , as they are called in their inscriptions, 
and those which were left for some show of open voting, 
though influenced, it might be, by court favor. 

The peculiar feature of the old Roman executive had 
been its want of centralized action. Each magistrate 
might thwart and check his colleague; the collision 
between different officials, the power of veto, and the 
absence of supreme authority might bring the political 
machinery to a dead lock. The imperial system swept 
aside these dangers, left each magistrate to the routine of 
his own work, and made him feel his responsibility to the 
central chief. It was part of the policy of Augustus to 
disturb as little as possible the old names and forms of 
the Republic; to leave their old show and dignity, that 
those who filled them might seem to be not his own 
creatures, but the servants of the state. But besides these 
he set up a number of new offices, often of more real power 
Now offices though of lower rank ; he filled the most im- 
created. portant of them with his confidants, delegat- 

ingto them the functions which most needed his control, 
and in which he could not brook any show of independ¬ 
ence, and left behind him the rudiments of a centralized 
bureaucracy which his successors gradually enlarged. 
Two terms correspond respectively to two great classes. 

The name ftrcefectus, the ftrtftt of modern 
France, stood in earlier days for the deputy 
of any officer of state charged specially to execute some 
definite work. The praefects of Caesar were his servants, 


Prsefectus. 


—A.D. 14. 


Augustus. 


*7 


PrssfectUS 

Urbi. 


Praetoria, 


named by him and responsible to him, set to discharge 
duties which the old constitution had commonly ignored. 
The prefect of the city had appeared in 
shadowy form under the Republic to repre¬ 
sent the consul in his absence. Augustus 
felt the need, when called away from Rome, to have 
some one there whom he could trust to watch the jealous 
nobles and control the fickle mob. His trustiest confi¬ 
dants, Maecenas and Agrippa, filled the post, and it be¬ 
came a standing office with a growing sphere of compe¬ 
tence, overtopping the magistrates of earlier date. 

The praefects of the praetorian cohorts first appeared 
when the Senate formally assigned a body-guard to 
Augustus later in his reign. The troops were 
named after the picked soldiers who were 
quartered round the tents of the generals of the Repub¬ 
lic, and when they were concentrated by the city walls 
their chief commanders soon filled a formidable place in 
history, and their loyalty or treachery often decided the 
fate of Rome. Next to these in power and importance 
came the praefects of the watch—the new 
police force organized by Augustus as a pro- Ilfnon®. 
tection against the dangers of the night; and 
of the corn supplies of Rome, which were always an ob¬ 
ject of especial care on the part of the imperial govern¬ 
ment. And besides these, there were many various 
duties entrusted by the head of the state to special dele¬ 
gates, both in the capital and through the provinces. The 
titl <zprocurator, which has come down to us p r ocura- 
in the form of “ proctor,” was at first mainly torfcS - 
a term of civil law, and was used for a financial agent or 
attorney. The officers so called were regarded at first 
as stewards of the Emperor’s property or managers of 
his private business. They were therefore for some time 


is 


The Earlier Empire. 


b.c. 31- 


of humble origin, for the Emperor’s household was 
organized like that of any Roman noble. Slaves or 
freedmen filled the offices of trust, wrote his letters, kept 
his books, managed his affairs, and did the work of the 
treasurers and secretaries of state of later days. Kept 
within bounds by sterner masters, they abused the con¬ 
fidence of weak emperors, and outraged Roman pride by 
their wealth, arrogance, and ostentation. The agents of 
the Emperor’s privy purse throughout the provinces were 
called by the same title, but were commonly of higher 
rank and more repute. 

Such in its bare outline was the executive of the im¬ 
perial government. We have next to see what was the 

position of the Senate. That body had been 

TTIig Senate 

in early times the council summoned to ad¬ 
vise the king or consul. By the weight and experience 
of its members, and their lifelong tenure of office, it soon 
towered above the short-lived executive, and became the 
chief moving force at Rome. But the policy of the 
Gracchi had dealt a fatal blow at its supremacy. Pro¬ 
scriptions and civil wars had thinned its ranks. The first 
Caesar had treated it with studied disrespect, and in the 
subsequent times of anarchy the influence of the order 
and the reputation of its members had sunk to the lowest 
depth of degradation. It was one of the first cares of 
Augustus to restore its credit. At the risk of odium and 
personal danger he more than once revised the list, and 
purged it of unworthy members, summoning eminent 
provincials in their place. He was careful of their outward 
dignity, and made the capital of a million sesterces a 
needful condition of the rank. The functions also of the 
Senate were in theory enlarged. Its decrees on questions 
brought before it had henceforth the binding force of 
law. As the popular assemblies ceased to meet for legis- 


—A.D. 14. 


Augustus. 


*9 


Privy 

Council. 


lation, case after case was submitted to its judgment, 
till it gained speedily by prescription a jurisdiction of 
wide range, and before long it decided the elections at its 
will or registered the nominations of the Emperor. 

But the substance of power and independence had 
passed away from it forever. Matters of great moment 
were debated first, not in the Senate House, 
but in a sort of Privy Council formed by the 
trusted advisers of the Emperor, while the 
discussions of the larger body served chiefly to mask the 
forms of absolutism, to feel the pulse of popular senti¬ 
ment, and to register decisions formed elsewhere. 
Treated with respect and courtesy by wary princes, the 
senators were the special mark of the jealousy and greed 
of the worst rulers. 

If we now turn our thoughts from the centre to the 
provinces we shall find that the imperial system brought 
with it more sweeping changes and more real 

r a Tho govern- 

improvement. Almost every country of the ment of the 

Roman world had long been frightfully mis- provinces - 

governed. Towards the end of the Republic there rises 

from every land a cry in tones that grow ever louder—a 

cry of misery and despair— that their governors are 

greedy and corrupt, scandalously indifferent to justice, 

conniving at the extortion of the Roman capitalists who 

farmed the tithes and taxes, and of the money-lenders, 

who had settled like leeches all around them. 

The governors who hastened to their provinces after 
a short tenure of official rank at Rome looked to the 
emoluments of office to retrieve their fortunes, exhausted 
frequently by public shows and bribery at home. They 
abused their power in a hundred ways to amass enor¬ 
mous wealth, with little check from the public opinion 
of their order, or from the courts of law before which 


20 


The Earlier Empire. 


B.e. 31- 


Senatorial 

provinces. 


they might possibly be prosecuted by their victims or 
their rivals. 

But a new order of things was now begun. Augustus 
left to the Senate the nominal control of the more 
peaceful provinces, which needed little mili¬ 
tary force. To these ex-consuls .and ex¬ 
praetors were sent out as before, but with no 
power of the sword and little of the purse. High sala¬ 
ries were paid to them directly by the state, but the 
sources of indirect gains were gradually cut off. By 
their side was a proctor of the Emperor’s privy purse, to 
watch their conduct and report their misdemeanors. At 
home there was a vigilant ruler, ready to give ear to the 
complaints of the provincials, and to see that justice was 
promptly done by the tribunals or the Senate. Doubt¬ 
less we still hear of much misgovernment, and scandal¬ 
ous abuses sometimes are detailed, for the evils to be 
checked had been the growth of ages, and the vigilance 
of a single ruler, however strict, must have been often¬ 
times at fault. 

The remaining countries, called imperial provinces, 
were ruled by generals, called legati , or in some few 
cases by proctors only. They held office 
during the good pleasure of their master, 
and for longer periods often than the sena- 
toi ial goveinors. There are signs that the imperial pro¬ 
vinces weie better ruled, and that the transference of a 
country to this class from the other was looked upon as 
a real boon, and not as an empty honor. 

Such in its chief features was the system of Augustus, 
the rudiments of the bureaucratic system which was 
General slowly organized by later ages. This was 

the a new er ° f hls constructiv e policy, and on the value of 
regime. this creative work his claims to greatness 


Imperial 

provinces 


—A.D. 14. 


Augustus . 


21 


must be based. To the provinces the gain un¬ 
doubtedly was great. His rule brought them peace 
and order and the essentials of good government. It 
left the local forms of self-rule almost untouched, and 
lightened, if it did not quite remove, the incubus of 
oppression which had so long tightened its grasp upon 
their throats. At Rome, too, the feeling of relief was 
keenly felt. Credit recovered with a rebound after the 
victory at Actium. Prices and the rate of interest fell at 
once. The secret adherents of the fallen cause began 
to breathe again more freely when they heard no men¬ 
tion of proscription; the friends of order learnt with joy 
that the era of anarchy was closed; rigid republicans 
found their jealous suspicions half-disarmed by the re¬ 
spect shown for the ancient forms and names, by the 
courtesy with which the Senate had been treated, and 
above all, perhaps, by the modest, unassuming manners 
of their prince. For he shunned carefully Th ^ l 
all outward pomp, moved about the streets manners of 
almost unattended, sat patiently through the 
games and shows which the Romans passionately loved, 
went out to dinner readily when asked, and charmed 
men by his simple courtesy. He could bear plain speak¬ 
ing too, for a blunt soldier to whose petition he said that 
he was too busy to attend, told him to his face, that he 
had never said he was too busy to expose his own life 
for him in battle. The expenses of his household scarcely 
rose to the level of those of many a wealthy noble ; he 
wore no clothes save those made for him by Livia and 
her women, and studiously avoided all profusion or ex¬ 
travagance. He tried also to spare his people’s purses, 
for upon a journey he often passed through a *own by 
night, to give the citizens no chance of proving their loy¬ 
alty by costly outlay. 


22 


The Eaj'lier E7nfiire. 


B.C. 31- 


But he spent his treasure lavishly for public ends. The 
public games and festivals provided by him were on a 
, , scale of magnificence quite unexampled; 

for public great sums were often spent in largess to the 
ob ^ ectb ' populace of Rome. In times of scarcity 

corn was sold in the capital below cost price, besides the 
vast quantities distributed in free doles among the poor. 
Noble senators of decayed fortunes were often pen¬ 
sioned, to enable them to live up to their rank. Costly 
buildings set apart for public uses, temples, baths, thea¬ 
tres, and aqueducts, rose rapidly on every side. His 
kinsmen, intimates, all whom his influence could move, 
vied with him in such outlay, and helped him to realize 
the boast of later days, “that he found a city of brick, 
and left one of marble in its place.” The great roads in 
Italy and through the provinces were carefully repaired, 
and a postal system set on foot, confined, it is true, to 
official uses. Armed patrols marched along the roads, 
brigandage was forcibly put down, slave-gangs were in¬ 
spected, and the abuses of times of violence redressed. 
In the capital itself, a police force was organized for the 
first time, intended mainly at the first for protection 
against fire, but soon extended and made permanent to 
secure peace and order in the streets, which for centuries 
the Republic had neglected. In distant countries, his 
fatherly care was shown in time 'of need, by liberal 
grants of money, to help public works, or repair the 
ravages of earthquakes. The interests of the legions also 
were consulted, but not at the expense of quiet citizens, 
<as before. Vast sums were spent in buying up lands in 
the neighborhood of the great towns of Italy, where war 
or slow decay had thinned their numbers, in order at 
once to recruit the urban population, and supply the 
veterans with farms. Colonies were planted, too, be- 


-A.D. 14. Augustus. 23 

yond the seas, for the relief of the over-grown populace 
of Rome. 

There was enough in such material boons to conciliate 
all classes through the Empire. The stiff-necked cham¬ 
pions of the Republic had died upon the 
battle-field; a generation had grown up de- ^ence^n qU '* 
moralized by years of anarchy, and few these changes, 
were left to mourn the loss of freedom. Few eyes could 
see what was one day to be apparent that the disguises 
and the insincerities of the new rkgime were full of dan¬ 
ger ; that to senator and office-bearer the paths of poli¬ 
tics were strewn with snares ; that in the face of a timid 
or suspicious ruler, it would be as perilous to show their 
fear as to make a brave show of independence. For 
a while they heard the familiar sounds of Senate, consul, 
and of tribune ; they saw the same pageants as of old 
in daily life. Nor did they realize as yet, that liberty 
was gone forever, and that the ancient forms that passed 
before them were as empty of real life as the ancestral 
masks that moved along the streets to the noble Ro¬ 
man’s funeral pyre. 

From the imperial machinery we may next turn to the 
great men who helped possibly to create and certainly 
to work it. It was the singular good fortune 
of Augustus to secure the services of two ^rs h of fl Au- 
ministers like Agrippa and Maecenas, of dif- s ustus - 
ferent genius but equal loyalty of character. 

Marcus Vipsanius, surnamed Agrippa, had been, in 
early days, the school-fellow and intimate of Octavius. 
They were at Apollonia together studying Agrippa 
the philosophy and art of Greece, when the 
tidings came that Caesar had been murdered. They 
were together when the bold scheme was formed and 
the two youths set forth together to claim the heritage 


24 


The Earlier Empire. 


b.c. 31- 


of Caesar, and to strive for the empire of the world. To 
whom the initiative was due, we know not; but we do 
know that Agrippa’s courage never wavered, though 
Octavianus seemed at times ready to falter and draw 
back. To the many-sided activity of Agrippa 

His energy. . ... , . , 

and to his unfailing resolution, the success 
of that enterprise seems mainly due. He was the great 
general of the cause that triumphed, the hero of every 
forlorn hope, and the knight-errant for every hazardous 
adventure in distant regions. His energy helped to win 
Perusia after stubborn siege ; his quick eye saw in the 
Lucrine lake the shelter for the fleets that were to be 
manned and trained before they could hope to face Sex¬ 
tus Pompeius, the bold corsair chief, who swept the seas 
and menaced Rome with famine. Thanks to him again 
the victory of Actium was won, for the genius if not the 
courage of Octavianus failed him on the scene of 
battle. 

Whenever danger showed itself henceforth—in Gaul, 
in Spain, where the native tribes rose once more in 
arms; in Pontus, where one of the line of Mithridates 
unfurled the banner of revolt; on the shores of the 
Danube, where the Pannonians were stirring—no hand 
but Agrippa’s could be trusted to dispel the gathering 
storms. We find in him not heroism alone 
Icef saCri " but ^e spirit of self-sacrifice. Three times, 

we read, he refused the honors of a triumph. 
At a word he stooped to the lowest round of official rank, 
the sedileship, burdened as it was with the ruinous re¬ 
sponsibilities of shows and festivals, and kept the Romans 
in good humor at a critical moment of the civil struggle. 
To win further popularity by the sweets of material well¬ 
being, the soldier forsook the camp and courted the arts 
of peace, busied himself with sanitary reforms, repaired 


—A.D. 14. 


Augustus. 


2 5 


Marries 

Marcella. 


the magnificent cloaca of old Rome, con- Public 

works. 

structed the splendid therm ce for the hot 
baths introduced from Eastern lands, built new 
aqueducts towering aloft upon the arches of the old, and 
distributed the pure water so conveyed to fountains in 
every quarter of the city, which were decorated with 
statues and columns of precious marbles to be counted 
by the hundred. Another sacrifice was called for—to 
divorce the daughter of Atticus, Cicero’s famous friend, 
and drew nearer the throne by marrying the 
Emperor’s niece, Marcella; and he obeyed 
from dutiful submission to his master, or from the ambi¬ 
tious hope to share the power which his sword had won. 
Soon it seemed as if his loyalty was to meet with its re¬ 
ward. Augustus was brought to death’s door by sudden 
illness, and, in what seemed like his last hour, seized 
Agrippa’s hand and slipped a ring upon the finger, as if 
to mark him out for his successor. But health returned 
again, and with it visible coolness towards Agrippa and 
increased affection for Marcellus, his young nephew. 

Agrippa resigned himself without a murmur, and lived 
in retirement a while at Lesbos, till the 
death of Marcellus and the warnings of 
Maecenas pointed him out again as the only 
successor worthy of the Empire. Signs of discontent 
among the populace of Rome quickened the Emperor’s 
desire to have his trusty friend beside him, and to draw 
him yet more closely to him he bade him 
put away Marcella, and gave him his own jutfa ™ 65 
daughter Julia. Once more he obeyed in 
silence, and now might fairly hope to be rewarded for 
his patience and one day to mount into the weakly 
Emperor’s place. But his lot was to be always second, 
never first. His strong frame, slowly weakened by hard 


Retires to 
Lesbos. 


2 6 


The Earlier Empire. 


B.C. 31- 


campaigns and ceaseless journeys at full speed in every 
quarter of the world, gave way at last, and 
P ies . his career was closed while he seemed yet 

(b.c. 12 ). 

in his prime. In him Augustus lost a gal¬ 
lant soldier and unselfish friend, who is said, indeed, to 
have advised him after Actium to resign his power, but 
who certainly had done more than any other to set him 
up and to keep him on the pinnacle of greatness. It 
throws a curious light upon his story to read the com¬ 
ment on it in the pages of the naturalist, 
Pliny about Pliny. He is speaking of the superstitious 
him< fancy that misery clouded the lives of all 

who were called Agrippa. In spite, he says, of his bril¬ 
liant exploits he was no exception to the rule. He was 
unlucky in his wife Julia, who dishonored his good name ; 
in his children, who died by poison or in exile; and un¬ 
happy also in bearing all his life what he calls the hard 
bondage of Augustus. The friend for whom he toiled 
so long and faithfully showed little tenderness of heart; 
the master whom he served had tasked his energies in 
every sphere, and called for many an act of self-devotion, 
but he had already looked coldly on his loyal minister, 
and he might at any moment weary of a debt he could 
not pay, and add another page to the long chronicle of 
the ingratitude of princes. 

Maecenas, better known by his mother’s name than 
that of Cilnius, his father, came from an 
Etruscan stock that had given a line of 
masters to Arretium. He was better fitted for the council 
chamber than the field of battle, for the delicate ma¬ 
noeuvres of diplomacy than for the rough work of stormy 
times. During the years of civic struggle, and while the 
air was charged with thunder-clouds, we find him always, 
as the trusty agent of Octavianus, engaged on every 


Maecenas. 


—A. D. 14. 


Augustus.. 


2 7 


important mission that needed adroitness 
and address. His subtle tact and courte- H . 1S 
sies were tried with the same success upon 
Sextus Pompeius and on Antonius, when the confidence 
of each was to be won, or angry feelings charmed away, 
or the dangers of a coalition met. His honied words 
were found of not less avail with the populace of Rome, 
when scarcity and danger threatened and the masters of 
the legions were away. It seemed, indeed, after the 
Empire was once established that his political career was 
closed, for he professed no high ambition, 
refused to wear the gilded chains of office, A ™ id f d . 

0 official rank, 

or to rise above the modest rank of knight¬ 
hood. He seemed content with his great wealth (how 
gained we need not ask), with the social charms of 
literary circles and the refinements of luxurious ease, of 
which the Etruscans were proverbially fond. But his 
influence, though secret, was as potent as before. He 
was still the Emperor’s chief adviser, coun¬ 
selling tact and moderation, ready to soothe chief adviser 
his ruffled nerves when sick and weary of Augustus. 

with the cares of State. Pie was still serving on a secret 
mission, and one that lasted all his life. Keenly relish¬ 
ing the sweets of peace and all the refined and social 
pleasures which a great capital alone can 
furnish, haunted by no high principles to t h c tone of 
vex his Sybaritic ease, and gifted with a rare ^Ifes 1 
facility of winning words, he was peculiarly 
fitted to influence the tone of Roman circles and diffuse 
a grateful pride in the material blessings of imperial 
rule. He could sympathize with the weariness of men 
who had passed through long years of civic strife and 
seen every cause betrayed by turns, and who craved 
only peace and quiet, with leisure to enjoy and to forget. 


2 8 


The Earlier Empire . 


B.C. 31- 


Instinct or policy soon led him to caress the 
through the poets of the day, for their social influence 

poets r ... 1 

might be great. Their epigrams soon passed 
from mouth to mouth; a well-turned phrase or a bold 
satire lingered in the memory long after the sound of the 
verses died away; and the practice of public recitations 
gave them at times something of the power to catch the 
public ear which journalism has had in later days. So 
from taste and policy alike Maecenas played the part 
of patron of the arts and letters. He used 

as their . . . . 

patron. the fine point and wit of Horace to sing the 

Horace. praises of the enlightened ruler who gave 

peace and plenty to the world, to scoff meantime at high 
ambitions, and play with the memory of fallen causes. 
The social philosophy of moderation soothed the self- 
respect of men who were sated with the fierce game of 
politics and war, and gladly saw their indolent and 
skeptical refinement reflected in the poet’s graceful words. 

He used the nobler muse of Virgil to lead 
the fancy of the Romans back to the good 
old days, ere country life was deserted for the camp and 
city, suggested the subject of the Georgies to revive the 
old taste for husbandry and lead men to break up the 
waste land with the plough. He helped also to degrade 
that muse by leading it astray from worthier themes to 
waste its melody and pathos in the uncongenial attempt 
to throw a halo of heroic legend round the cradle of the 
Julian line. Other poets, too, Propertius, Tibullus, 
Ovid, paid dearly for the patronage which cramped their 
genius and befouled their taste, and in place of truer 
inspiration prompted chiefly amorous insipidities and 
senile adulation. For himself his chief aim 
in later life seemed careless ease, but that 
boon fled away from him the more he wooed 


Virgil. 


His domestic 
trials. 


—A.D. 14. 


Augustus. 


29 


it. The Emperor eyed Terentia, his wife, too fondly, 
and the injured husband consoled himself with the best 
philosophy he could. But she was a scold as well as a 
coquette, and now drove him to despair with bitter 
words, now lured him to her side again, till their quarrels 
passed at length beyond the house and became the com¬ 
mon talk of all the gossips of the town. As he was borne 
along the streets, lolling in his litter, in a dress loose 
with studied negligence, his fingers all bedecked with 
rings, with eunuchs and parasites and jesters in his train, 
men asked each other with a smile what was the last 
news of the fickle couple—were they married or divorced 
again ? At last his nerves gave way and 
sleep forsook him. In vain he had recourse Sleepless- 
to the pleasures of the table which his 
Tuscan nature loved, to the rare wines that might lull 
his cares to rest, to distant orchestras of soothing music. 
In earlier days he had set to tuneful verse what Seneca 
calls the shameful prayer, that his life might still be 
spared when health and strength and comeliness forsook 
him. He lived long enough to feel the vanity of all his 
wishes. Nothing could cure his lingering agony of 
sleeplessness or drive the spectre of death from his bed¬ 
side. But the end came at last. He passed away, 
and, loyal even in his death, he left the Emperor his 
heir. 

We have watched Augustus in his public life, and 
marked his measures and his ministers ; it is time now to 
turn to his domestic circle and see what influences were 
about him there. The chief figure to be 
studied is Livia, his wife, who had been the 
object of his violent love while still married to Tiberius 
Nero, and had been forced to quit her reluctant husband 
for the home of the triumvir. She soon gained over him 

D 


3 ° 


The Earlier Empire . 


B.C. 31- 


Sources of an influence that never wavered. Her gentle 

her influence . . 

over Au- courtesies of manner, her wifely virtues never 
gustus ' tainted by the breath of scandal, the homeli¬ 

ness with which she copied the grave matrons of old 
days who stayed at home and spun the wool to clothe 
their men, the discreet reserve with which she shut her 
eyes to her husband’s infidelities, are the reasons given 
by herself, as we are told, when she was asked for the 
secret of her power. Quite insufficient in themselves, 
they may have helped to secure the ascendency which 
her beauty and her strength of character had won. The 
and its gradual change that may be traced in the 

nature. outward bearing of Augustus may be due 

partly to her counsels. Certainly she seemed to press 
patience and forbearance on him, and Dion Cassius at a 
later time puts into her mouth a pretty sermon on the 
grace of mercy when her husband’s temper had been 
soured by traitorous plots. She was open-handed too 
in works of charity, brought up poor children at her own 
expense, and gave many a maid a marriage dower. 
Caligula, who knew her well, and had insight in his own 
mad way, called her “ Ulysses in petticoats; ” and the men 
„ .of her own day, it seems, thought her such a 

Suspicion of 0 _ 

her sinister subtle schemer, that they credited her with 

acts of guile of which no evidence was pro¬ 
duced. Dark rumors floated through the streets of 
Rome, and men spoke of her in meaning whispers, as 
death knocked again and again at the old man’s doors 
and the favorites of the people passed away. It was 
her misfortune or her guilt that all who were nearest to 
the Emperor, all who stood between her son and the suc¬ 
cession, died by premature and seemingly mysterious 
deaths. The young Marcellus, to whose memory Virgil 
raised the monument of his pathetic lines ; the brave 


-A.D. 14. 


Augustus. 


3 i 


Treatment 
of Agrippa 
Postumus. 


Agrippa, cut off when all his hopes seemed nearest to ful¬ 
fillment; two of Julia’s children by Agrippa, within 
eighteen months of each other ; all died in turn befoie 
their time, and all were followed to the grave by regrets 
and by suspicions that grew louder in each case. For 
Livia had had no children by Augustus. The fruit of her 
first marriage Drusus died in Germany, and Tiberius alone 
was left. The popular fancy, goaded by re- 

r , • 7 ! / to secure the 

peated losses, found it easy to believe that a succession of 

ruthless tragedy was going on before their 

eyes, and that the chief actor was a mother scheming 

for her son, calmly sweeping from his path every 

rival that she feared. One grandson still 

was left, the youngest of Julia’s children, 

Agrippa Postumus, who was born after his 

father’s death. On him Augustus lavished his love 

awhile as the last hope of his race, adopted him even as 

his own; but soon he found, or was led to fancy, that 

the boy was clownish and intractable, removed him to 

Surrentum, and when confinement made him worse, to 

the island of Planasia. But one day pity or regret stole 

over the old man’s heart: he slipped away quietly with a 

single confidant to see the boy, seemed to feel the old 

love revive again, and spoke as if he would restore him 

to his place at home. The one bystander told his wife 

the story, and she whispered it to Livia’s ear. That 

witness died suddenly soon after, and his wife was 

heard to moan that her indiscretion caused his death. 

Then Livia dared no longer to wait, lest a story of 

dotard’s fondness should be fatal to her poisoning 

hopes. Quietly she took her potent drugs to Augustus. 

a favorite fig tree in a garden close at hand, then as they 

walked together later on offered him the poisoned figs 

and ate herself of the harmless ones that grew beside. 


3 2 


The Earlier Ejnpire. 


B.C. 3I- 


Such were the stories that were current at the time, 
too lightly credited perhaps from fear or hate, but 
noteworthy as reflecting the credulous suspicions of the 
people, and the fatality that seemed to haunt the house¬ 
hold of the Caesars. Of that family the two Julias yet 
remained alive, the wife and daughter of Agrippa ; but 
they were pining in their lonely prisons, and their 
memory had almost passed away. 

The elder Julia was the child of Augustus by 
Her be- Scribonia. Betrothed while still in the nur¬ 

sery to a young son of Antonius, she was 
promised in jest to Cotison, a chieftain of the Getae, and 
then to the nephew of the Emperor, Marcellus. At his 
and mar- death she passed, at the age of seventeen and 
riages. with her the hopes of succession to Agrippa’s 

house where an earlier wife was displaced to make room 
for her. Eleven years she lived with him, and when he 
died Tiberius must in his turn divorce the Agrippina 
whom he loved and take the widowed princess to his 
house. She had been brought up strictly, almost sternly 
by her father. Profligate as he had been himself in early 
life, his standard of womanly decorum was a high one, 
and he wished to see in Julia the austere dignity of the 
Roman matrons of old days. But she was readier to fol¬ 
low the examples of his youth than the disguises and hy¬ 
pocrisies of his later life. She scorned the modest home¬ 
liness of Livia and the republican simplicity of Augustus, 
aired ostentatiously her pride of race, and loved profusion 
and display. Once freed by marriage from 

xi.Gr extra- 

vagance and the restraints of her father’s home, she be- 
profligacy, g an a ca reer of license unparalleled even for 
that age. She flung to the winds all womanly reserves, 
paraded often in her speech a cynical disdain for conven¬ 
tional restraints, and gathered round her the most reck- 


-A.D. 14, 


Augustus. 


33 


less of the youth of Rome, till her excesses became a 
scandal and a byword through the town. The Emperor 
was the last to know of his dishonored name. ^ f 
He had marked, indeed, with grave dis— known to her 
pleasure her love of finery and sumptuous father " 
living, had even destroyed a house which she built upon 
too grand a scale; but for years no one dared to tell him 
more, till at last some one, perhaps Livia, raised the veil, 
and the whole story of her life was known. He heard 
of her long career of guilty license, and how but lately 
she had roved at night through the city with her train of 
revellers and made the Forum the scene of her worst 
orgies, dishonoring with bold words and shameless deeds 
the very tribune where her father stood but yesterday to 
speak in favor of his stricter marriage laws. He was told, 
though with little show of truth, that she was plotting a 
still darker deed and urging her paramour to take his 
life. The blow fell very hardly on the father, and 
clouded all the peace of his last years. At first his 
rage passed quite from his control. Her desks were 
ransacked, her slaves were tortured, and all the in¬ 
famous details poured out before the Senate. When 
he was told that Phoebe, the freed woman and con¬ 
fidant of Julia, had hung herself in her despair he 
answered grimly, “Would that I were Phoebe’s father.” 
Nothing but her death seemed likely to content him. 
Then came a change ; he shut himself away from 
sight, and would speak of her no more. She was 
exiled to a cheerless island ; and though the Herbanish- 
fickle people, and Tiberius even, pleaded ment(n. c. 2) 
for her pardon, she was at most allowed at Rhegium 
a less gloomy prison. There, in her despairing lone¬ 
liness, she must have felt a lingering agony 
of retribution. She heard how the hand misery. 


34 


The Earlier Ejnpire. 


B.c. 31- 


of vengeance fell upon her friends and paramours, and 
harder still to bear, how child after child mysterioueiy 
died, and only two were left—Agrippa, thrust away 
from sight and pity on his petty island, and Julia, who 
had followed in her mother’s steps, and was an exile and 
a prisoner like herself. 

Such family losses and dishonors might well embitter 
the Emperor’s last years ; but other causes helped to 
deepen the gloom which fell upon him. Since Agrippa’s 
death there was no general whom he could trust to lead 
his armies, no strong hand to curb the restless tribes of 
the half-conquered North, or roll back from the frontiers 
the tide of war. He sent his grandsons to the distant 
armies • but they were young and inexperienced, and 
firmer hands than theirs were needed to save the eagles 
from disgrace. 

One great disaster at this time revealed the danger 
and sent a thrill of horror through the Empire. The 
German tribes upon the Gallic border had 
Germany m kept unbroken peace of late, and many of 
them seemed quite to have submitted to the 
Roman rule. A few years before, indeed, some hordes 
had dashed across the Rhine upon a plundering foray, 
and in the course of it had laid an ambush 
for the Roman cavalry, and driven them 
and Lollius, their leader, backward in con¬ 
fusion and disgrace. But that storm had rolled away 
again, and the tribes sent hostages and begged for 
peace. Roman influence seemed spreading through the 
North, as year by year the legions and the traders car¬ 
ried the arts of settled life into the heart of Germany. 
But in an evil hour Quintilius Varus was sent thither in 
command. The rule seemed too lax and the change too 
slow for his impatience, and he set himself to consoli- 


Defeat of 
Lollius 


-A.D. 14. 


Augustus. 


35 


date and civilize in hot haste. Discontent and disaffec¬ 
tion spread apace, but Varus saw no danger and had no 
suspicions. The German chieftains, when their plots 
were laid, plied him with fair assurances of peace, lured 
him to leave the Rhine and march towards the Visurgis 
(Weser) through tribes that were all ready for revolt. 
Wiser heads warned him of the coming danger, but in 
vain. He took no heed, he would not even keep his 
troops together and in hand. At last the schemers, 
Arminius (Hermann) at their head, thought the time 
had come. They began the rising at a distance, and 
made him think it only a local outbreak in a friendly 
country ; so they led him on through forest lands, then 
rose upon him on all sides in a dangerous defile. The 
legions, taken by surprise as they were marching care¬ 
lessly, hampered with baggage and camp-followers, 
could make little head against their foes. They tried to 
struggle on through swamps and woods, where falling 
trees crushed them as they passed along, and barricades 
were piled by unseen hands, while wind and rain seemed 
leagued together for their ruin. Three days they stood 
at bay and strove to beat off their assailants, who re¬ 
turned with fresh fury to the charge. Then their strength 
or courage failed them. The more resolute 

. and loss of 

spirits slew themselves with their own Varus, with 
hands, and the rest sank down to die. Of legions, 
three full legions few survived, and for A- D- 9> 
many a year the name of that field of death—the Saltus 
Teutoburgiensis—sounded ominously in Roman ears. 

In the capital there was a panic for a while. A short 
time before they had heard the tidings that Pannonia 
was in revolt, and now came the news that 
Germany was all in arms, and, forcing the Rome, at 
Roman lines, stripped as they were of their 


3 6 


The Earlier Empire. 


B.C. 31- 


army of defence, might pour even into Italy, which 
seemed a possible, nay easy prey. The danger, indeed, 
was not so imminent. Tiberius, and after him German- 
icus, maintained the frontier and avenged their soldiers; 
but the loss of prestige was very great, and the emperor 
felt it till his death. For months of mourning he would 
not trim his beard or cut his hair, and “ Varus, give me 
back my legions !” was the moan men often heard him 
utter. He felt it the more keenly because soldiers were 
, „ „ so hard to find. At the centre no one 

and grief of 

the Em- would enlist. In vain he appealed to their 

sense of honor, in vain he had recourse to 
stringent penalties; he was forced at last to enroll 
freemen and make up his legions from the rabble of 
, the streets. He had seen long since with 

who can # 0 

hardly levy alarm that the population was decreasing, 

had re-stocked the dwindling country 
towns with colonists, had tried to promote marriage 
among all classes, had forced through a reluctant Sen¬ 
ate the Lex Papia Poppaea by which celibacy was sad¬ 
dled with penal disabilities. But men noticed with a 
sneer that the two consuls after whom the law was 
named were both unmarried, and it was a hopeless effort 
to arrest such social tendencies by legislation. The cen¬ 
tral countries of the Empire could not now find men to 
fill the ranks. The veterans might be induced to for¬ 
sake the little glebes of which they soon grew weary, 
but others would not answer to the call. Whole regions 
were almost deserted, and the scanty populations had 
little mind for war. So the distant provin- 

except in . * 

the pro- ces became the legions’ recruiting-ground, 
and the last comers in the Empire must 

defend it. 

Under the pressure of such public and domestic cares 


-A.D. 14. 


Augustus. 


37 


we need not wonder that the Emperor became moody 
and morose, and that the unlqvely qualities Augustus 
of earlier days began to re-appear. He g rew 

1 . . t .... r morose, 

shunned the gentle courtesies of social life, 
would be present at no festive gatherings, disliked even 
to be noticed or saluted. Increasing weakness gave 
him an excuse for failing to be present in the Senate— 
a few picked men could represent the body, and the 
Emperor’s bed-chamber became a privy council. He 
heard with petulance that the exiles in the Islands were 
trying to relax the rigor of their lot, and living in com¬ 
fort and in luxury. Stringent restrictions were imposed 
upon their freedom. He heard of writings 
that were passing through men’s hands in and resented 
which his name was spoken of with caustic 
wit and scant respect. The books must be hunted out 
at once and burnt, and the authors punished if they 
could be found. The bitter partisanship with which 
Titus Labienus had expressed his republican sympathies, 
and the meaning look with which he turned over pages 
of his history, which could be read only after he was 
dead, have made his name almost typical of the struggle 
between despotism and literary independence. Cassius 
Severus said he must be burnt himself, if the memory 
of Labienus’ work must be quite stamped out; and his 
was, accordingly, the first of the long list of cases in 
which the old laws of treason—the Leges Majestatis — 
were strained to reach not acts alone but Leges Ma j es . 
words. A much more familiar name, the t at,S j n " 

forced 

poet Ovid, is brought before us at this time, agamst 
The spoiled child of the fashionable society 
of Rome, he had early lent his facile wit to amuse the 
careless worldlings round him, had made a 
jest of the remonstrances of serious friends, 


Ovid. 


38 


The Earlier Empire . 


B.C. 31- 


who tried to win his thoughts to politics and busy life, 
and had squandered all his high gifts of poetry on friv¬ 
olous or wanton themes. His conversational powers or 
his literary fame attracted the notice of the younger 
Julia, and he was drawn into the gay circle that sur¬ 
rounded her. There in an evil hour, it seems, he was 
made the confidant of dangerous secrets, and was one 
of the earliest to suffer when the Emperor’s eyes at last 
were opened. To the would-be censor and reformer 
of the public morals, who had turned his back upon the 
follies of his youth, the poet’s writings must have been 
long distasteful, as thinly veiled allurements to licen¬ 
tiousness. The indignant grandfather eyed them still 
more sternly, saw in them the source or the apology of 
wanton deeds, and drove their author from the Rome he 
„ ., , loved so well to a half-civilized home at 

Banished to 

Tomi. Tomi, on the Scythian frontier, from which 

all his unmanly flatteries and lamentations 

failed him. 

It was time Augustus should be called away ; he had 
lived too long for happiness and fame, his subjects were 
growing weary of their master, and some were ready to 
conspire against him. Still doubtless in the provinces 
men blessed his name, as they thought of 
the prosperity and peace which he had long 
secured to them. One ship’s crew of Alex¬ 
andria, we read, when he put into Puteoli, 
where they were, came with garlands, frank¬ 
incense, and glad words of praise to do him honor. “ To 
him they owed,” so ran their homage, “ their lives, their 
liberties, and the well-being of their trade.” But those 
who knew him best were colder in their praises now, and 
scarcely wished that he should tarry long among them. 
For seventy-five years his strength held out, sickly and 


Augustus at 
last less 
popular at 
Rome than 
in the pro¬ 
vinces. 


—A.D. T4. 


Augustus. 


39 


Died at 
Nola. 


enfeebled as his body seemed. The summons came as 
he was coasting by Campania, and left him only time to 
crawl to Naples and thence to Nola, where 
he died. To those who stood beside his bed 
his last words, if reported truly, breathe 
the spirit of his life : “ What think ye of the comedy, 
my friends ? Have I fairly played my part in it? If so, 
applaud.” The applause, if any, must be given to the 
actor rather than to the man, for the least lovely features 
of his character seem most truly his. 

In his last years he was busy with the task of giving 
an account of his long stewardship. Long ago he had 
set on foot a survey of the Empire, and 
maps had been prepared by the geographi- of the Urvey 

cal studies of Agrippa. Valuations of landed workf/* 
property had been made, as one step, 
though a very partial one, towards a uniform system of 
of taxation. He had now gathered up for ^ 

the benefit of his successors and the Sen- mary of 
ate all the varied information that lay statistics 
ready to his hand. He had written out with 
his own hand, we are told, the statistics of chief moment, 
an account of the population in its various grades of 
privilege, the muster-rolls of all the armies and the fleets, 
and the balance-sheet of the revenue and expenditure 
of state. Taught by the experience of later years, or 
from the depression caused by decaying strength, he 
added for future rulers the advice to be con- , . . 

and advice 

tent with organizing what was won already, to his sue- 

cessors. 

and not to push the frontiers of the army 
further. Before he died he took a last survey of his own 
life, wrote out a summary of all the public acts which he 
cared to recall to memory, and left directions that the 
chronicle should be engraved on brazen tablets in the 


40 


The Earlier E?npire . 


B.C. 31- 


mausoleum built to do him honor. That chronicle may 
The Monu- still rea d, though not at Rome. In a dis- 
mentum An- tant province, at the town of Ancyra, in 

cyranum. 1 _ 

Galatia, a temple had been built for the 
worship of Augustus, and the guardian priests had a 
copy of his own biography carved out at length in stone 
on one of the side-walls. The temple has passed since 
then to other uses and witnessed the rites of a different 
religion ; houses have sprung up round it, and partly 
hidden, though probably preserved, the old inscription. 
Until of late only a part of it could be deciphered, but a 
few years ago the patient energy of the explorers sent 
out by the French Government succeeded in uncover¬ 
ing the whole wall and making a complete copy of nearly 
all that had been written on it. From the place where 
it was found its literary name is the “ Monumentum An- 
cyranum.” It is not without a certain grandeur, which 
even those may feel who dispute the author’s claim to 
greatness. With stately confidence and monumental 
brevity of detail it unfolds the long roll of his successes. 
Disdaining seemingly to stoop to the pettiness of bitter 
words, it speaks calmly of his fallen rivals; veiling, in¬ 
deed, in constitutional terms the illegalities of his career, 
but misleading or unfair only by its silence. Not a word 
is there to revive the hateful memory of the proscrip¬ 
tions, little to indicate the dire suspense of the war with 
Sextus Pompeius, or the straits and anxieties of the long 
struggle with Antonius; but those questionable times of 
his career once passed, the narrative flows calmly on. 
It recounts with proud self-confidence the long list of 
battles fought and victories won; the nations finally 
subdued under his rule ; the Eastern potentates who 
sought his friendship ; the vassal princes who courted 
his protection. It tells of the many colonies which he 


—A.D. 14. 


Augustics. 


4 i 


had founded, and of the towns recruited by its veterans; 
speaks of the vast sums that he had spent on shows and 
largess for the people ; and describes the aqueducts 
and various buildings that had sprung up at his bidding 
to add to the material magnificence of Rome. For all 
these benefits the grateful citizens had hailed him as the 
father of his country. To the provincials who read these 
lines it might seem perhaps that there were few signs in 
them of any feeling that the Empire owed any duties to 
themselves. A few words of reference to the sums spent 
in time of need upon their towns, and that was all. To 
the administrator it might seem a strange omission to say 
nothing of the great change in the ruling mechanism. 
Yet in what was there omitted lay his claim to greatness. 
The plea which justified the Empire was found in the 
newly-organized machinery of government and in the 
peace and justice long secured to the whole civilized 


world. 

High as he had risen in life, he was to be raised to a 
yet higher rank after his death, and the Augustus 
deified Augustus became, like many a sue- deified, 
ceeding emperor, the object of a national Explana- 
worship. A phenomenon so startling to tl0ns - 
our modern thought calls for some words of comment. 
First, we may note that polytheism naturally tends to 
efface the boundary-lines between the human and the 
divine. It peoples earth and air and water 
with its phantom beings, of bounded powers 
and clashing wills, and weaves with wanton 
hand the fanciful tissue of its legends, in which it plays 
with the story of their loves and hates and fitful moods of 
passion, till its deities can scarcely be distinguished from 
the mortal men and women in whose likeness they are 


1. Poly¬ 
theism less 
scrupulous. 


pictured. 


42 


The Earlier Empire . 


B.C. 31- 


Eastern thought, moreover, seldom scrupled to honor 
its great men with the names and qualities of godhead. 

Often in servile flattery, sometimes perhaps 
p'eoples'had i n ^ ie spirit of a mystic creed, it saw in the 
deified their rulers whom it feared a sort of avatar or in- 

kingS. 

carnation of a power divine, which it made 
the object of its worship. The Pharaohs of Egypt and 
the monarchs of Assyria were deified in their lifetime by 
the language of inscriptions, and in later times temples 
were raised in Asia Minor in honor of the governors of 
the day, so that Antonius and Cleopatra gave little shock 
to Eastern sentiment when in their royal pageant they 
assumed the titles and symbols of Isis and Osiris. It was, 
therefore, on this side of the Roman world that the 
fashion of worshipping the Emperor began. Even in 
the lifetime of Augustus deputations came from towns of 
Asia which were anxious to set up altars and build 
temples in his honor. For awhile, indeed, he treated 
them with coldness and sometimes with mockery, he yet 
could not quite repress the enthusiasm of their servile 
worship, which grew apace in the more distant provinces. 

Less credulous minds looked upon the tendency as 

only a fanciful way of symbolizing a great 
tionafizing fact. Much of the simple faith in the old 
euhemer- ° r legendary creeds had passed away before 
lsm - the critical spirit of Greek culture, and many 

thought that the heroes and gods of the old fables were 
but the great men of past times seen through the mist of 
popular fancy, till a divine halo gathered round their 
superhuman stature. If the sentiment of bygone days 
had made gods out of the men who sowed the seeds of art 
and learning and tamed the savagery of early life, the 
wondering awe of ignorant folk might be allowed to 
crystalize still in the same forms, and to find a national 


—A. D. 14. 


Augustus. 


43 


deity in the great ruler who secured for the whole world the 
boon of civilized order. So reasoned probably the criti¬ 
cal and unimpassioned, content to humor the credulous 
fancy of the masses, and to deal tenderly with an admi¬ 
ration which they did not share, but which it might be 
dangerous to thwart. 

Above all, in Italy the tendency in question found sup¬ 
port and strength in a widespread feeling which had 
lingered on from early times, that the souls 

0 J ’ 4. The Italian 

of men did not pass away at death, but still worship of 

haunted their old homes, and watched as 
guardian Lares over the weal and woe of the generations 
that came after. Offering and prayer seemed but a fit¬ 
ting token of respect, and might be useful to quicken 
their sympathies or appease their envy. Thus every 
natural unity, the family, the clan, the canton, and the 
nation, had their tutelary powers and special ritual of 
genuine home growth, while nearly all besides the 
foreign influences had overlaid the old reli- 

esoeci T.11 v 

gious forms. It had been part of the con- fostered by 
servative policy of Augustus to foster these Augustus, 
old forms of worship, to repair the little chapels in the 
city wards, and to give priestly functions to the 
?nasters of the streets officially connected with them. 
Even while he lived he allowed the figure of his Genius 
to be placed in the chapels beside the Lares. The Genius 
At his death divine honors were assigned to of Augustus, 
it as to the rest, or rather it rose above them all, as the 
imperial unity had towered above the petty districts 
which they were thought to guard. Temples rose to the 
deified Augustus, altars smoked in every land, and guilds 
of Augustales were organized to do him 
priestly service—for the provinces were 
eager to follow the example of the imperial city, and 


Augustales. 


44 


The Earlier Empire . 


B.C. 31- 


their loyal zeal had even outstripped the reverence of Rome. 
The ruling powers were well pleased to see a halo of aw¬ 
fulness gatherround their race, while subject people saw 
in the apotheosis of the monarch only a fitting climax to 
the majesty of his life and a symbol of the greatness of 
the Empire. And so succeeding monarchs in their turn 
were deified by pagan Rome, as saints were canonized 
by favor of the Pope. The Senate’s vote gave divine 
honors with the title of “ Divus,” and it was passed com¬ 
monly as a matter of course, or withheld only as a token 
of abhorrence or contempt. 


CHAPTER II. 


TIBERIUS.—A.D. 14-37. 

Tiberius Claudius Nero was the son of Tiberius Nero 
and Livia, and was carried by them while still an infant 
in their hurried flight after the surrender of 
life of Perusia. On their return to Rome after the 

libenus. general peace his parents were separated by 
the imperious will of Octavianus, who made Livia his 
wife. Losing his father at the age of nine, and taken 
from the nursery to pronounce the funeral speech, he 
was placed again under his mother’s care and became 
the object of her ambitious hopes. He married the 
daughter of Agrippa, and loved her well, but was forced 
to leave her afterwards for Julia, who brought as her 
dowry the prospects of the imperial succession. He was 
soon sent to learn the business of a soldier 

Service in ... . ’ 

the f»eid serving in the campaign in Pannonia and 

Germany, and dispatched on missions of 



A.D. 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


45 


importance, such as to crown Tigranes in Armenia as 

a subject prince, and to carry home the eagles which 

had been lost in Parthia by Crassus. At home all the 

old offices of State were pressed upon him, 

till at last he was honored even with the and in offic s 

of State. 

significant honor of the tribunician power. 

Yet Augustus seems to have had little liking for him, and 
to have noted keenly all his faults, the taci¬ 
turn sullenness which contrasted painfully by Augus- 
with the Emperor’s gayer moods, his awk- tus> 
ward gestures and slow articulation when he spoke, the 
haughtiness of manner which came naturally to all the 
Claudian line, and the habit of hard drinking, on which 
the rude soldiers spent their wit when they termed him 
punningly “ Biberius Nero.” The Emperor even went 
so far as to speak to the Senate on the subject, and to 
say that they were faults of manner rather than of 
character. For the rest we hear that he was comely in 
face and well-proportioned, and handsome enough to 
attract Julia’s fancy; nor could he be without strong 
natural affection, for he loved his first wife fondly, and 
lived happily with Julia for awhile, and showed the 
sincerest sorrow when his brother Drusus died. This is 
all we hear of him till the age of thirty-five. Then comes 
a great break in his career. Suddenly, 
without a word of explanation, he wishes to 
leave Rome and retire from public life. 

Livia’s entreaties, the Emperor’s protests, 
and the remonstrances of friends have no effect; and 
having wrung from Augustus his consent, he betakes 
himself to Rhodes. What were his motives cannot now 
be known. It may have been in part his disgust at 
the guilty life of Julia, who outraged his honor and 
allowed her paramours to make merry with his character; 


His retire¬ 
ment to 
Rhodes 
(b.c. 6) 


46 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 14-37. 


where he lives 
quietly though 
with occasion¬ 
al show of 
power. 


in part perhaps weariness at being always kept in lead¬ 
ing-strings at Rome ; but most probably it was jealousy 
at the rising star of the young grandsons of the Emperor, 
and fear of the danger that might flow from too visible 
a rivalry. In the pleasant isle of Rhodes he lived awhile, 
quietly enough, though he could not always 
drop his rank. One day he was heard to 
say that he would go and see the sick. He 
found that he was saved the trouble of 
going far in search, as the magistrates had them all 
brought out and laid in order under the arcades, with 
more regard to his convenience than theirs. Another 
time, when a war of words was going on among the 
wranglers in the schools, he stepped into the fray, and 
was so much hurt at being roughly handled that hurry¬ 
ing home, he sent a guard to seize the poor professor 
who had ventured to ignore his dignity. At length, 
growing weary of his stay at Rhodes, he said that the 

He wished young princes were now secure of the suc- 
to return to cession, and that he might safely take a 
was not lower place at Rome. But Augustus coldly 

allowed. bade him stay and take no further trouble 
about those whom he was so determined to forsake. 

Then came a time of terrible suspense. He knew 
that he was closely watched, and that the simplest words 
were easily misjudged. The Emperor reproached him 
with tampering with the loyalty of the officers who put in 

His danger at Rhodes to see him. He shunned the 
and sus- coast and lived in solitude, to avoid all official 

pense. ... 

visits, and yet he heard to his alarm that he 
was still regarded with suspicion, that threatening words 
had passed about him in the intimate circle of the young 
Caesars, that his prospects looked so black that the citi¬ 
zens of Nemausus (Nismes) had even flung his statue 


A.D. 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


47 


down to curry favor with his enemies, that his innocence 
would help him little, and that at any moment he might 
fall. Only Thrasyllus, his astrologer, might see him, to 
excite him with ambiguous words. But Livia’s influence 
was strong enough at last to bring him back to Rome, 
after more than seven years of absence to Livia pro- 
live, however, in complete retirement, in the recall hls 
gardens of Maecenas, to take like a school- ( A D - 2 -) 
boy to mythology, and pose the grammarians who formed 
his little court with nice questions about the verses which 
the Sirens used to sing, or the false name and adoption 
which the young Achilles bore. Not until by Au s ustus - 
the death of the young Caesars was he taken back to 
favor and adopted by the Emperor as his son. 

But the weariness of those long years of forced inac¬ 
tion, the lingering agony of that suspense had done 
their work, and he resigned himself hence- H!s pat je n t 
forth without a murmur to the Emperor’s self-control 

r henceforth. 

will. Not a moment of impatience at the 
caprices of the sick old man, not an outspoken word nor 
hasty gesture now betrayed his feelings ; but, as an apt 
pupil in the school of hypocrisy about him, he learned 
to dissemble and to wait. The only favor that he asked 
was to take his post in every field of danger, and to 
prove his loyalty and courage. With all 

x J J Was usually 

his powers of self-restraint he must have away from 

breathed more freely in the camp than in t h e army. 

the stifling air of Rome, and the revolt in 

Pannonia gave him the opportunity he needed. That 

war, said to be the most dangerous since the wars with 

Carthage, tasked for three years all his resources as a 

general at the head of fifteen legions. Scarcely was it 

closed when the defeat of Varus summoned him to the 

German frontier to avenge the terrible disaster. In the 


The Earlier E?npire. a . d . 14-37. 


40 


campaigns that followed he spared no vigilance or per¬ 
sonal effort, shared the hardships of the soldiers, and 
enforced the rigorous discipline of ancient generals. 
Not only does Velleius Paterculus, who served among 
his troops, speak of his commander in terms of un¬ 
bounded praise, but later writers, who paint generally a 
darker picture, describe his merits at this time without 
reserve. 

From such duties he was called away to the death- 
,, , bed of Augustus, whom he found at Nola, 
the death- either dead already or almost at the last 

Augustus. gasp. But Livia had been long since on the 

watch, had strictly guarded all approach to 
his bed-side, and let no one know that the end was 
. near till her son was ready and their mea- 
of Livia. sures had been taken. He had been long 
since marked out for the succession by the formal act of 
adoption, which made him the natural heir, 
as also by the partnership in the tribunician 
dignity, which raised him above all the 
other subjects. But the title to the sovereign 
rank was vague and ill-defined, and no con¬ 
stitutional theory of succession yet existed. As the Em¬ 
pire by name and origin rested on a military 
the legions basis the consent of the soldiery was all- 

tant mp ° r " important. If the traditions of many years 

were to have weight, the Senate must be 
consulted and respected. The legions were far away 
upon the frontiers, in greatest force upon the side 
of Germany and Pannonia; and the first news that 
came from the North was that the two ar- 
l^mutYny 6 rnies were in mutiny, clamoring for higher 
pay and laxer discipline. The hasty levies 
raised after the defeat of Varus had lowered the general 


Claim to 
succeed 
based on 
adoption and 
tribunicia 
potestas. 


A.D. I4-37. 


Tiberius. 


49 


and were 
ready to 
raise Ger- 
manicus to 
the highest 
rank, 


morale , and carried to the camp the turbulent license of 
the capital. On the Rhine there was the further danger 
that Germanicus, his nephew, who was then in supreme 
command, should rely on his influence with his troops 
and lead them on, or be led by them, to fight for empire. 
This son of Drusus, who had been the popular idol of 
his day, and who was said to have hankered after the old 
liberties of the Republic, had won himself the soldiers’ 
hearts by his courtesy, gallantry and grace, and the fa¬ 
miliar name of Germanicus which they gave him is the 
only one by which history has known him 
since. They were ready to assert their 
right to be consulted. The power which 
they defended was in their hands to give at 
a word from him, and if that word had been 
spoken they would certainly have marched in arms to 
Rome. But he was not fired by such ambitious hopes, 
nor had he seemingly any sentimental 
dreams of ancient freedom. He took with- h^dhe been 

willing. 

out delay the oath of obedience to Tiberius, 
restored discipline after a few anxious days of mutiny, 
and then tried to distract the thoughts of his soldiers 
from dangerous memories by a series of campaigns into 
the heart of Germany. 

Tiberius meanwhile at home was feeling his way with 
very cautious steps. While he was still uncertain of the at¬ 
titude of Germanicus and the temper of the legions, he 
used nothing but ambiguous language, affect- Caution of 
ed to decline the reins of the state, kept even Tiberius 

7 r # and ambi- 

the Senate in suspense, and at last with guous 
feigned reluctance accepted office only for 
awhile, till they should see fit to give him rest. It was in 
keeping with such policy that he shrank shrank from 
from the excessive honors which the Senate f itles of 

honor 


5° 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 14-37. 


and from tried to lavish on him, and declined even the 
titles which Augustus had accepted. Either 
from fear or from disgust he showed dislike to the flat¬ 
tery which was at first rife about him, checked it when it 
was outspoken, and resented even as a personal offence 
the phrases “lord” and “master” as applied to him. 
„ „ , „ Meantime the Senate was encouraged to 

Referred all ..... 

business to think that the powers of administration rested 
the Senate, j n ^ e j r h an ds. Nothing was too paltry, 

nothing was too grave to be submitted for their discussion ; 
even military matters were at first referred to them, and 
generals in command were censured for neglecting to 
report their doings to the Council. The populace of 
but neg- Rome, however, was treated with less cour¬ 

tesy. The ancient forms of the elections 
were quite swept away, and in legislation 
also the Senate took the place of the popular assembly. 
Little attempt was made to keep the people in good 
and the humor by shows of gladiators or gorgeous 

ofthe ementS pageants, and Tiberius would not try to put 
people. on the studied affability with which Augustus 

sat for hours through the spectacles, or the frank courtesy 
with which he stayed to salute the passers by. But, on 
the other hand, he showed himself at first sincerely 
Seemed desirous of just rule, warned provincial gov- 
anxious to ernors who pressed him to raise higher taxes 
that “ a good shepherd shears but does not 
flay his sheep,” and kept a careful watch on the tribunals 
to see that the laws were properly enforced. Vigorous 


lected the 

popular 

assemblies 


measures were adopted to put down brigandage, the 
police of Italy was better regulated, popular disturbances 
in the capital or in the provinces were promptly and even 
sternly checked, and many of the abuses were remedied 
which had grown out of the old rights of sanctuary. 


A.D. 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


5 * 


The policy of the early years of the new reign must 
have been largely due to Livia’s influence. For many 
years Tiberius had been much away from 
Rome, and it was natural that he should at ence S of Li*^" 
first rely upon his mother’s well-tried state¬ 
craft, her knowledge of men and familiar experience of the 
social forces of the times. He owed all to her patient 
scheming, even if she had not, as men thought, swept 
away by poison the obstacles to his advancement. Her 
position was for many reasons a commanding one. The 
will of Augustus had named her as co-heiress, given 
her the official title of Augusta, and raised now ca n ec i 
her by adoption to the level of her son. She Au § usta - 
shared with him, therefore, in some measure the imperial 
dignity ; their mames were coupled in official language; 
the letters even of Tiberius ran for some time in her name 
as well as his. There were numerous coins of local cur 
rency, at Rome and in the provinces, on which her name 
was stamped, sometimes joined with her son’s but oftener 
alone. At her bidding, or by her influence, priesthoods 
were formed and temples rose in all parts of the empire 
to extend the worship of the deified Augustus; and in¬ 
scriptions still preserved upon them testify to her pride 
of self-assertion, as well as to the policy with which she 
strove to surround the imperial family with the solemn 
associations of religious awe. To that end TT 

0 . . Her politic • 

she also enlisted the fine arts in her service, patronage of 

and found employment for the first sculptors, 

engravers and painters of the day in multiplying copies 

of the features of the ruling race, and endearing them to 

the imagination of the masses. 

The Senate was not slow to encourage the ambition of 
Augusta. Vote after vote was passed as the members 
tried to outdo each other in their flattery, till they raised 


52 


The Earlier E?npire. a . d . 14-37. 


Tiberius 
showed jea¬ 
lousy of the 
honor paid 
to Augusta. 


her even to the foremost place, and proposed to call the 
Emperor Livius to do her honor. Tiberius, 
indeed, demurred to this ; and before long 
there were signs clear enough to curious 
eyes that he was ashamed to feel he owed 
her all, impatient of her tutelage, and jea¬ 
lous of her high pretensions. Men spoke in meaning 
whispers to each other, and wits made epigrams on the 
growing coldness between mother and son. They said 
he vainly strove to keep her in the shade. Old as she 
was, she clung to power and state, and relied on her 
talents and influence to hold her own. The Senate and 
the camp she could not visit, but in all else she claimed 
to rule. As he seemed to shun the eyes of men she 
came forward more in public, won popular favor by her 
courtesies and generous gifts, gathered her crowd of 
courtiers round her, conferred at her will the offices of 
state, and tried to overawe the courts of justice when 
the interests of her favorites were at stake. In the circle 
of her intimates we hear of irreverent wits 
whose caustic speeches did not spare the 
Emperor himself; and once, we read, when 
words ran high between Augusta and her 
son, she took from her bosom old letters of Augustus and 
read sarcastic passages that bore on his faults of man¬ 
ner or of temper. This coolness did not lead to open 
rupture, for his old habits of obedience were confirmed 
enough to bear the strain, and he submitted to her 
claims, though grudgingly and ungraciously 
enough. 

On the whole she used her influence 
wisely, and while she ruled, the policy of 
state was cool and wary. She could be stern and reso¬ 
lute enough when force seemed needful. She had given 


Coolness in 
their re a- 
tions, but no 
open rupture. 


She used her 
influence 
wisely on 
the whole. 


A.D. 14 37. 


Tiberius. 


53 


orders for the death of Agrippa Postumus as 
soon as his grandfather had ceased to 
breathe. She did not plead for pity with 
her son when he let Julia die a wretched death of slow 


though she 
could be 
stern, 


starvation in her prison, and took at last his vengeance on 
her paramour for the mockery and outrage of the past. It 
is likely even that her quick eye saw the and per h a ps 
use that might be made of the old laws of suggested 

the new use 

treason, which had come down from the of the “leges 
Commonwealth. They had been meant ma i estatls - 
to strike at men who had by open act brought dishonor 
or disaster on the state. Sulla was the first to make them 
cover libellous words, and Augustus had, though spa¬ 
ringly, enforced them in like cases. The Caesar had 
already stepped into the people’s place and screened 
his majesty against so-called treason; but when the 
Caesar had been deified, any crime against his person 
was heightened by the sin of sacrilege. In the language 
of the law obedience to the living Emperor soon became 
confounded with the religious worship of the dead, and 
loyalty became in theory a sort of adoration. Any dis¬ 
respect might carry danger with it. Jesting words 
against the late Emperor might be construed into blas¬ 
phemy when the Emperor had become a god. His 
likeness must be held in honor, and it might be fatal 
even to beat a slave who clung for safety to his statue, 
or to treat carelessly his effigy upon a coin. A few such 
cases were enough to increase enormously the imperial 
prestige , and extend to the living members of the 
family some of the reverence that was gathering round 
the dead. But though Augusta had few scruples she 
had no taste for needless bloodshed, and while she lived 
she certainly exercised a restraining influence upon her 
son. 


54 


The Earlier Empire. A.D. 14-37. 


Another of the Emperor’s family exerted a force of 
like restraint though in a very different way. Germanicus 

Restraining was darling of the legions, and might at 

force exerted an y moment be a pretender to the throne, 
by the fear J 1 

of Germani- He had calmed his mutinous soldiery, led 

CHS 

' them more than once into the heart of Ger¬ 

many, visited the battle-field where Varus fell, and 
brought back with him in triumph the captive wife and 
child of Arminius, the national hero of the Germans. It 
who was might seem dangerous to leave him longer 

fromGer- at ^ ie ^ ea< ^ °f an arm y so devoted to their 
many, general—dangerous perhaps to bring him 

back to win the hearts of men at Rome. Rut his presence 
might be useful in the East, for the kingdoms of Parthia 
and Armenia had been torn by civil war and thrown into 
collision by the claims of rival candidates for power, and 
by wars of succession due in part at least to the intrigues 
of Rome. A general of high repute was needed to protect 
the frontier and appease the neighboring powers and the 
death of some of the vassal kings of Asia Minor had left 
thrones vacant, and wide lands to be annexed or orga¬ 
nized. It was resolved to recall Germanicus from his 
post and to despatch him to the Syrian frontier on this 
important mission. On the north there was 
a mission to little to be gained by border warfare, which 
provoked but could not crush the resistance 
of the German tribes, and there was wisdom in following 
the counsel of Augustus not to aim at farther conquests. 
Germanicus might be unwilling to retire; but the duties to 
which he was transferred were of high dignity and trust. 
Yet men noted with alarm that Silanus who was linked 
. to him by ties of marriage, was recalled from 
appointment Syria at the time, and the haughty, self-willed 

tobe n g(> 1SO Cnseus Piso made governor in his stead. 


A.D. 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


55 


Dark rumors spread abroad that he had been vernor of 

Syria. 

chosen for the task of watching and of thwart- 
ing the young prince, and that his wife, Plancina, had been 
schooled in all the petty jealousies and spite of which 
Agrippina was the mark. So far at least all was mere 
suspicion, but there was no doubt that when they went to 
Syria the attitude of Piso was haughty and offensive. He 
made a bold parade of independence, disputed the autho¬ 
rity and cavilled at the words and actions of 

. -iiii His offensive 

Germanicus, tampered even with the loyalty conduct to 

of the soldiers, and drove him at last to open GermanicJS » 
feud. When Germanicus fell ill soon afterwards Piso 
showed indecent glee, and though he was on the eve of 
quitting Syria he lingered till further news arrived. He put 
down by violence the open rejoicing of the crowd at An¬ 
tioch when cheerful tidings came. Still he waited and the 
murmur spread that the sickness was his work, and that 
poison and witchcraft had been used to gratify his spite 
and perhaps to do the Emperor’s bidding. Germanicus 
himself was ready to believe the story and 
to fear the worst. Suspicions gained force 
as he grew weaker, and his last charge on 
his death-bed to his friends was to expose 
his murderer and avenge his death. The 
sad story was received at Rome with passionate sorrow 
and resentment. His father’s memory, his noble quali¬ 
ties and gentle bearing, had endeared him to all classes, 
and men recalled the ominous words that “ those whom 
the peopl'e love die early.” One after another their fa¬ 
vorites had passed away, cut off in the spring-time of 
their youth ; and now the last of them, the best beloved 
perhaps of all, had been sent away from them, they mur¬ 
mured, to the far East to die from the noxious air of 
Syria, or it might be from the virulence of Piso’s hate. 


who be¬ 
lieved that 
he was 
poisoned 
by Piso. 
a. d. 19. 


5 « 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 14-37. 


n L Still more outspoken was the grief when the 
grief at chief mourners reached the shores of Italy, 

his death was and passed in sad procession through the 
known. towns. At the sight of the widowed Agrip¬ 

pina, and the children gathered round the funeral urn 
that held his ashes, all classes of society vied with each 
other in the tokens of their sympathy. There was no 
flattery in such signs of mourning, for few believed that 
Tiberius was sorry, and many thought that he was glad 
Popular at l° ss that they regretted. Was it grief 

suspicions, that l^ e pt him in the palace, or fear lest men 
should read his heart ? Was it due respect to his young 
nephew to give such scant show of funeral honors, and 
to frown at the spontaneous outburst of his people’s sor¬ 
row ? Was it love of justice or a sense of guilt that made 
him so slow to punish Piso’s crime, so quick to discour¬ 
age the zeal of his accusers ? They could only murmur 
and suspect, for nothing certain could be known. At 
Piso’s trial there was evidence enough of angry words 
but no proof and bitter feelings, of acts of insubordina- 
of foul play. tion, almost of civil strife, but no proof that 
Germanicus was murdered, still less that Tiberius was 
privy to the deed. It was, indeed, whispered abroad 
that the accused had evidence enough to prove that he 
only did what he was bidden; but if so, he feared to use 
it, and before the trial was over he died by his own hand. 

The popular suspicion against Tiberius was no mere 
after-thought of later days, when Rome had learnt to 
know the darker features of his character. 
From die first they had never loved him, 
and the more they saw the less they liked 
him. lie seemed of dark and gloomy tem¬ 
per, with no grace or geniality of manner, 
shunning the pleasures of the people, and 


The people 
disliked 
Tiberius 
from the 
first. 


Reasons. 


A.D. 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


57 


seldom generous or open-handed. He had even an un¬ 
gracious way of doing what was right, and spoiled a 
favor by his way of granting it. There was such reserve 
and constraint in what he said that men thought him a 
profound dissembler and imputed to him crimes he had 
no thought of. They seemed to have divined the cru¬ 
elty that was still latent, and to have detested him before 
his acts deserved their hate. Even in the early years 
the satires current in the city and the epigrams passed 
from mouth to mouth show us how intense was the dis¬ 
like ; and soon we see enough to justify it. 

One of the most alarming features of the times in 
which men traced his influence was the rapid spread of 
professional accusers, of the deiatores, of 
whom we read, indeed, before, but who now 
became a power in the state. The Roman 
law of early times looked to private citizens 
to expose wrong-doing, and to impeach civil or political 
offenders. Sometimes it was a moral indignation, oftener 
it was the bitterness of party feeling, and oftener still the 
passion of ambition, that brought them forward as ac¬ 
cusers. The great men of the Republic were constantly 
engaged in legal strife. Cato, for example, was put on 
his defence some four-and-forty times, and appeared still 
oftener as accuser. It was commonly the first step in a 
young man’s career to single outa prominent Common 
member of the rival party, to charge him practice of 
with some political offence, and to prove in llTenuinder 
the attack his courage or knowledge of the the Re P ubhc - 
laws. This practice naturally intensified the bitterness 
of party struggles, and often led to family feuds. It took 
to some extent the place of the duelling of modern times, 
and led more than once to a sort of hereditary “ vendetta.” 
It oftener served the passions of a party than the real 


The “ dela- 
tores” of the 
Empire 
now first 
appeared. 


53 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 14-37. 


interests of justice; and, prized as it was as a safeguard 
and privilege of freedom, fostered license more than 
liberty. Yet, as if this tendency were not strong enough 
R d already, measures were taken to confirm it. 

offered to More sordid motives were appealed to, and 

zea l 0 f hopes of money bribes were held out to spur 

informers. on t p e accuser ’ s z eal. These, it may be, 

seemed more needful, as moral sympathies were growing 
stronger and the party passions of the Commonwealth 
were cooling down. Certainly the meaner motives must 
have been most potent in the days of the early Empire, 
when men came forward to enforce the sumptuary 
and marriage laws which were almost universally dis¬ 
liked. 

We hear little of the delatores as a class under 
Augustus; but in the days of his successor they became 
almost at once of prominent importance. The wider 
range given to the laws of treason, the vagueness 
of the crimes that fell within their scope, and the 
terror of the penalties that threatened the accused, 
armed the informers with a class of weapons 
which they had not known before. With a 
ruler like Tiberius they became quite a new 
wheel in the political machinery. It suited his reserve 
to keep himself in the background while the objects 
of his fear or his suspicions were attacked, to learn the 
early stages of the trial from men who had no official 
connection with himself, while the Senate or the law 
courts were responsible for the result, and he could step 
in at last to temper, if he pleased, the rigor of the 
sentence. He did not own them for his instruments, 
refused even to speak to them directly on the subject; 
but with instinctive shrewdness they interpreted his 
looks, divined his wishes, and acted with eagerness 


Their influ¬ 
ence under 
Tiberius, 


K . D . 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


59 

upon a word that fell from any confidant whom he 
semed to trust. No wonder that their num- ,. 

ana increase 

bers grew apace, for it seemed an easy road in numbers, 
to wealth and honor. Settling even by threes and fours 
upon their victims, they disputed the precedence of the 
attack, for if they were successful the goods of the con¬ 
demned might be distributed among them ; and when an 
enemy of Caesar fell, quite a shower of official titles, was 
rained upon them. They came from all classes alike. 
Some there were of ancient lineage and good old names; 
some were adventurers from the provinces who had come 
to push their fortunes in the capital; some even of the 
meanest rank who crowded into a profession where a 
ready tongue and impudence seemed the only needful 
stock in trade. For all were trained in early youth to 
speak and plead and hold their own in the keen fence 
of words. In the days of the Republic all Early train- 
must learn to speak who would make their iofy stiU^" 
way in public life, and the training of the common, 
schools remained the same when all besides was changed 
around them. The orator’s harangues had been silenced 
in the Forum. No Cicero might hope to sway the crowd 
or guide the Senate, but they disputed still and declaimed 
and labored at the art of rhetoric as if 
oratory were the one end and aim of life. u«ie g usein 
When life opened on them in real earnest mostcareers » 
they soon discovered how slowly honest and unaided 
talent could hope to make its way to fame. The con¬ 
ditions of the times were changed, and one only way 
was left to copy the great orators of earlier days. They 
could yet win wealth and honor, and make 

J .... . but useful 

the boldest spirits quail, and be a power in to the infor- 

the State, and gain perhaps the Emperor’s 

favor, by singling out some man of mark, high in office 


6 o 


7'he Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 14-37. 


or in rank, and furbishing afresh against him the weapons 
drawn from the armory of the laws of treason. If they 
were not weighted with nice scruples, if they could work 
upon the ruler’s fears or give substance to his vague 
suspicions ; if they were dexterous enough to rake up 
useful scraps of evidence and put their lies into a telling 
form, then they might hope to amass great fortunes 
speedily and to rise to high official rank. Did any wish 
to pay off an old debt of vengeance, or to force a recogni¬ 
tion from the classes that despised them, or to retrieve a 
shattered fortune and to find a royal road to fame, it 
needed only to swell the ranks of the reformers, to choose 
a victim and invent a crime. If no plausible story could 
be found to ruin him, it was always possible to put into 
his mouth some threats against the Emperor’s life, some 
bold lampoon upon his vices, which they found all ready 
, , to their hand. The annals of the times are 

who became 

objects of full of tales which show how terrible was the 
power they wielded. Through every social 
class and circle the poison of suspicion spread, for every 
friend might prove a traitor and be an informer in dis¬ 
guise. It might be perilous to speak about affairs of 
, , State, for the frankest words of confidence 

and caused 

widespread might be reported, and be dangerously mis¬ 
construed. It might be dangerous to be too 
silent, for fear of being taken for a malcontent. A man’s 
worst enemies might be in his home, for every house was 
full of slaves, who learned or guessed the master’s secrets, 
and whose eyes were always on the watch to divine the 
inmost feelings of his heart. In a few minutes, by a few 
easy words, they could wreak their vengeance for the 
slights of years, gain their freedom even by their master’s 
death, and with it such a slice of what was his as would 
make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. No inno- 


A.D. 14-37- 


Tiberius. 


61 


cence could be quite secure against such foes, for it was 
as easy to invent as to report a crime. No council- 
chamber was so safe but that some traitorous ear could 
lurk unseen, for in one trial it appeared that three sena¬ 
tors were hidden between the ceiling and the roof to 
hear the conversation of the man whom 
they accused. There was no kind of life 
without its dangers. To eschew politics was not enough. 
The poet’s vanity might lure him to his ruin if he 
ventured to compose an elegy upon the prince’s son, 
when the noble subject of his verse was sick, not dead. 
The historian’s life might pay the penalty for a few bold 
words of freedom, as Cremutius Cordus had to die for 
calling the murderers of Caesar the last of the old 
Romans. Philosophy itself might be suspected, for a 
lecture on the “ whole duty of man” might recognize 
another standard than the Emperor’s will and pleasure, 
and handle his special faults too freely. from w hi c h 
There was no escape from dangers such as 
these. In earlier days men might leave 
Rome before the trial was quite over, and shun the 
worst rigor of the law by self-cliosen banishment from 
home. But the strong arm of the imperial ruler could 
reach as far as the farthest limits of the empire, and 
flight seemed scarcely possible beyond. 

One only road of flight lay open, and to suicide 1 ” 
that many had recourse. When the fatal 
charges had been laid, men often did not stay to brook the 
ignominy of the trial, or face the informer’s torrent of in¬ 
vectives, but had their veins opened in the bath, orby poi¬ 
son or the sword ended the life which they despaired to 
save. They hoped to rescue by their speedy death some 
little of their fortune for their children, and to secure at least 
the poor advantage of a decent funeral for their bodies. 

F 


there was no 
escape, 


62 


The Earlier Empire. a . d . 14-37. 


His rise in 
power and 
favor. 


It was the Emperor’s suspicious temper that increased 
so largely the influence of the delatores; but there was 
one man who gained his trust, and gained 
The charader only to abuse it. Lucius yElius Sejanus 

of bejanus. J J 

had long since won favor by artful insight 
into character and affected zeal and self-devotion. His 
flattery was too subtle to offend, his duplicity so skilful 
as to mask completely his own pride and ambition, 
while he fed the watchful jealousy of his master by whis¬ 
pered doubts of others. His father, a knight of Tuscan 
stock, had been praefect of the imperial guards, ten bat¬ 
talions of which were quartered in different places round 
the city. When the son was raised to the same rank, 
his first act of note was to induce the Emperor to con¬ 
centrate the guards in one camp near the 
gates, as the permanent garrison of Rome, 
That done, he spared no pains to win the 
good-will of the soldiers, to secure the devotion of the 
officers, and raise his tools to posts of trust. To the 
real power thus secured, the rapidly increasing favor of 
Tiberius lent visible authority. In official language he 
was sometimes named as the partner of the ruler’s 
labors ; senators and nobles of old family courted his 
patronage with humble words ; official titles were be¬ 
stowed at his discretion, and spies and informers speedi¬ 
ly were proud to take rank in his secret service. While 
ambitious hopes were growing within him with the self- 
„ , , confidence of a proud and resolute nature, 

He schemed to _ A 

revenge himself the passion of revenge came in to define 

on Drusus . , , ... . 

for the insult and to mature them. Drusus, the young 
of a blow. son 0 f Tiberius, whom we read of as coarse, 

choleric, and cruel, happened in a brawling mood to 
strike Sejanus on the face. The blow was one day to be 
washed out in blood, but for the moment it was borne in 


A.D. 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


6 3 


Seduced 
Li villa, 

and poisoned 
Drusus, 


silence. He made no sign to rouse suspicion, but turned 
to Livilla, the prince’s wife, and plied her with his wily 
words, seconded by winning grace and personal beauty. 
The weak woman yielded to the tempter. 

Flinging away her womanly honor, and 
with it tenderness and scruple, she sacrificed 
her husband to her lover. With her help 
he had Drusus poisoned, and so removed 
the heir presumptive to the throne. 

Next came the turn of Agrippina and her children. 
Between the widowed mother and Tiberius a certain 
coolness had grown up already, which it was easy to in¬ 
crease. Her frank, impetuous, high-souled nature could 
not breathe freely in the palace. Proud of her husband’s 
memory and the promise of her children, and too re¬ 
liant on the people’s love, she could not stoop to weigh 
her words, to curb her feelings, and school herself to 
be wary and submissive. His dark looks and freezing 
manner stung her often to impatience, and she allowed 
herself to show too clearly the want of sympathy between 
them. The ill-timed warmth of Agrippina’s friends, the 
dark insinuations of Sejanus, widened the , 

J and widened 

breach already made, and each was made the breach 
to fear the other and hint at poison or at Tiberius and 
treason. The thunder-clouds had gathered Agnppma, 
fast, and the storm would soon have burst between them, 
had not Augusta stayed his hand and stepped in with 
milder counsels. Jealous as he may have been, the son 
still submitted to the mother’s sway. He feared an open 
rupture, while he chafed at her interference 
and restraint. Then the schemer thought Tiberius to 
of parting them. Away from Rome and ^nd Augusfa 
from his mother, Tiberius would breathe 
more freely, and lean more on his trusted servant, and 


6 4 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 14-37. 


Tiberius 
retired to 
Caprese, 
a.d. 26. 


he himself also could mature his plans more safely if he 
were not always watched by that suspicious eye. For 
twelve years the Emperor had scarcely left the city ; but 
he was weary at last of moving in the same round of 
public labors, of meeting always the same curious eyes, 
full as it seemed of fear or of mistrust. 

The counsels of Sejanus took root and bore their fruit 
in season. At first Rome only heard that its ruler was 
travelling southward, then that he was at 
Capreae, the picturesque island in the bay 
of Naples which had tempted Augustus with 
its charms and passed by purchase into his 
estates. Soon, they thought, he would be back again, 
but time went on and still he came not; and though he 
talked at times of his return, and came twice almost 
within sight, he never set foot within their walls again. 

After three years he heard at Capreae of his mother’s 
, , death, but he was not present at her funeral, 

The death 1 

of Augusta long neglected even to give the needful 

(A D 2Q^ • 

orders, and set at nought the last wishes of 
her will. Her death removed the only shield of Agrippina 
and her children. One after another their chief adherents 
had been swept away. The old generals 
that loved them had been struck down by 
the informers ; the relentless jealousy of the 
Emperor and Sejanus had for years set 
spies upon them to report and exaggerate unguarded 
words. All the charges which had been gathered up 
meantime were at once laid before the Senate in a mes¬ 
sage full of savage harshness ; the mother and her two 
eldest children were hurried off to separate prisons, with 
litters closed, lest the memory of Germanicus should stir 
the people. They languished there awhile, then perished 
miserably by sword and famine. 


followed by 
the fall of 
Agrippina 
and her 
children. 


A.D. 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


65 


There was another whom the Emperor had long looked 
at with unfriendly eyes. Asinius Gallus, a marked 
fieure in the higher circles, had taken to his 

“ . The fate of 

house the wife whom Tiberius had been Asinius 
forced indeed to put away, yet loved too 
well to feel kindly to the man who took his place. He 
had been named by the last Emperor among the few 
who might aspire to the throne, and was possibly the 
child the promise of whose manhood had been heralded 
by the fourth Eclogue of Virgil. He was certainly for¬ 
ward and outspoken, with something of presumption 
even in his flattery ; he had often given offence by hasty 
words, and above all in the early scene of mutual mis¬ 
trust and fear in the Senate House he had tried to force 
Tiberius to use plain language and drop his hypocritic 
trifling. He was made to pay a hard penalty for his 
boldness. The Emperor stayed his hand for years, 
allowed him to pay his court and join in the debates 
among the rest, and even summoned him to Caprese to 
his table. But even while he sat there the news came 
that the Senate had condemned him at the bidding of 
their master, and he left the palace for a prison. For 
years he pined in utter loneliness, while the death which 
he would have welcomed as a boon was still denied him. 

Meantime Sejanus ruled at Rome with almost absolute 
power. His master’s seemingly unbounded trust made 
soldiers, senators, informers vie with each 

i ■ r ,1 The great 

other in submissive service ; his favor was the power of 

passport to preferment; his enmity was fol- at 

lowed by a charge of treason or a threatening 
missive from Caprese to the Senate. All classes streamed 
to his ante-chambers with their greetings, and the world 
of Rome flattered, feared or hated him. The Emperor 
heard all intelligence through him, colored and garbled 


66 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. *4-37. 


as he pleased, approved his counsels, re-echoed his sus¬ 
picions, and daily resigned more of the burden of rule 
into his hands. There had been no sign of mistrust 
even when he had asked for the hand of Livilla, the 
widow of the murdered Drusus, though consent had been 
delayed and reproof of his ambition hinted. Yet, wary 
as Sejanus was, he could not hide from envious eyes the 
pride and ambition of his heart. He grew 
H-h-ghti- haughtier with the confidence of power, and 
men whispered that in moments of self-in¬ 
dulgence he spoke of himself as the real autocrat of 
Rome, and sneered at his master as the Monarch of the 
Isle. But that master’s eyes at length were opened. 
His brother’s widow, Antonia, long retired from public 
life, had kept a watchful eye on all that passed, and 
sent a trusty messenger at length to warn him. He saw his 
danger instantly, felt it with a vividness that 
Tiberiu° n at° seemed to paralyze his will and stay his 
aroused hand. For many months we have the curi¬ 

ous picture of the monarch of the Roman 
world brooding, scheming, and conspiring against his 
servant. For months his letters were so worded as to 
keep Sejanus balanced between fear and hope. Some¬ 
times he writes as if his health was failing, 
ktfon 1SSimU " an< ^ the throne w °uld soon be vacant, some¬ 
times promotes his friend and loads him 
with caresses, and then again his strength is suddenly 
restored and he writes fretfully and sternly. The Senate 
is kept also in suspense, but notes that he no more calls 
™ . the favorite his colleague, and that he raises 

ihe senate- a personal enemy to be consul. The bolt 
falls at last. Suddenly there arrives in 
Rome a certain Macro with letters from Capreae for the 
Senate. He carries the commission in his pocket which 


A.D. I4-37. 


Tiberius. 


67 


where the 
Emperor’s 
letter 

“verbosa et 
grandis 
epistola” is 
read, 


makes him the new praefect of the guard, and had been 
told to concert measures with Laco, the praefect of the 
watch. He meets Sejanus by the way, alarmed to find 
that there is no message for himself, and reassures him 
with the tale that the letter brings him the high dignity 
of tribunician power. While Sejanus hurries in triumph 
to the Senate House, Macro shows his commission to the 
praetorians and sends them to their quarters far away, 
while Laco guards the Senate House with his watch. 
The reading of the Emperor’s letter then begins. It is 
long and curiously involved in style, deals 
with many subjects, with here and there a 
slighting word against Sejanus, to which, 
however, he pays scant attention, as his 
thoughts are occupied with the signs of fa¬ 
vor soon to follow. Suddenly comes the unlooked-for 
close. Two of his nearest intimates are denounced for 
punishment, and he is to be lodged at once in prison. 
Those who sat near had slipped away from him mean¬ 
time ; Laco with his guards is by his side, while the 
Senate rises on all sides and vents in angry cries the 
accumulated hate of years. He is dragged and Sejanus is 
off to his dungeon. The people on the way deafh. ed ° fft ° 
greet him with savage jeers, throw down A - D - 3 1 * 
the statues raised long since in his honor, and the prae¬ 
torians in their distant quarter make no sign. The 
Senate takes courage to give the order for his death, and 
soon all that is left of him is a name in history to point 
the moral of an unworthy favorite’s rise and fall. His 
death rid Tiberius of his fears, but was fatal to the party 
who had looked to Sejanus as their chief, Cruelty of 
and possibly had joined him in treasonable Tiberius to the 

plots against his master. Post after post tisans of 
, 1 1 t 1 - . . Sejanus, 

brought the death-warrants ot iresh victims. 


68 


The Earlier E??ipire. 


a.d. 14-37. 


His kinsmen were the first to suffer, then came the turn 
of friends and tools. All who owed to him their ad¬ 
vancement, all who had shown him special honor, paid 
the hard penalty of their imprudence. The thirst for 
blood grew fiercer daily, for the wife of Sejanus on her 
death-bed told the story of the poison of 
heard'the which Drusus died, and the truth was known 
sus’ S death m * at ^ ast * Tiberius had hidden his grief when 
his son died, and treated with mocking 
irony the citizens of Ilium who came somewhat late with 
words of condolence, telling them that he was sorry that 
they too had lost a great man named Hector; but the 
grief he had then not shown turned now to thirst for 
vengeance. On any plea that anger or suspicion could 
dictate fresh names were added to the list of the accused, 
till the crowded prisons could hold no more. The prae¬ 
torians whose loyalty had been mistrusted were allowed 
to show how little they had cared for their commander 
by taking wild vengeance on his partisans ; the populace 
also roamed the streets in riotous mobs to prove their tardy 
hatred for his memory In a passage of the Emperor’s me¬ 
moirs that has come down to us we read the charge that 
the fallen minister had plotted against Agrippina and her 
children. We may compare with this the fact that the or¬ 
der for the death of the second son was given after the 
traitor’s fall. He was starved to death in the dungeon of 
the palace, after trying in his agony to gnaw the bed on 
which he lay, and the note-book of his gaoler gave a de¬ 
tailed account of his last words and dying struggles. 

At Capreae also there was no lack of horrors. There 
too the victims came to be tried under his eye, it is said 
. , to be even tortured, and to glut his thirst 
bloodshed at for bloodshed. He watched their agonies 
upon the rack, and was so busy with that 


A -D. I4-37. 


Tiberius. 


69 

work that when an old friend came from Rhodes at 
his own wish, he mistook the name of his invited guest 
and ordered him too to be tortured like the rest. Some 
asked to be put out of their misery by speedy death, but 
he refused, saying that he had not yet forgiven them. 
Even in trifling matters the like severity broke out. A 
poor fisherman climbed the steep rocks at Capreae to of¬ 
fer him a fine lobster; but the Emperor, startled in his 
walk by his unbidden visitor, had his face gashed with 
its sharp claws to teach him more respect for rank. Nor 
is it only cruelty that stains his name. Sen¬ 
suality without disguise or limit, unnatural debauches, 
lusts too foul to be described, debauchery 
that shrank from no excess, these are the charges of the 
ancient writers that brand him with eternal infamy. 
Over these it may be well to drop the veil and hasten 
onward to the close. 

At length it was seen that his strength was breaking 
up, and the eyes of the little court at Ca- His death, 
preae turned to Caius, the youngest son of A - D - 37, 
Agrippina and Germanicus, whom, though with few 
signs of love, he had pointed out as his successor. The 
physician whispered that his life was ebbing, and he 
sank into a swoon that seemed the sleep of death. All 
turned to the living from the dead and saluted him as 
the new Emperor, when they were startled with the news 
that the closed eyes were opened and Tibe- hastened possi- 
rius was still alive. But then—so ran the biy by the hand 

01 the young 

tale all Rome believed—the prasfect Macro Caius. 
bade the young prince be bold and prompt: together 
they flung a pillow on the old man’s head and smoth¬ 
ered him like a mad dog as he lay. 

The startling story of his later years is given with like 
features in the pages of three authors, Tacitus, Sueto- 


70 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 14-37. 


nius, and Dion Cassius, and none besides of ancient 
times describe his life or paint his character with any 
fulness of detail. But modern critics have come for¬ 
ward to contest the verdict of past history, and to de¬ 
mand a new hearing of the case. We must stay, there¬ 
fore, to see what is the nature of their plea. 

They remind us that, at the worst, it was only the so¬ 
ciety of Rome that felt the weight of his 
heavy hand. Elsewhere, they say, through 
all the provinces of the vast empire his rule 
was wise and wary. His firm hand curbed 
the license of his agents; he kept his le¬ 
gions posted on the frontiers, but had no 
wish for further conquests, and in dealing with neigh¬ 
boring powers relied on policy rather than 
force. The shelter that he offered to the 
fugitive chiefs of Germany and the pretend¬ 
ers to the Eastern thrones gave them al¬ 
ways an excuse for diplomacy and intrigues, 
which distracted the forces that were dan¬ 
gerous. Provincial writers like Strabo the geographer, 
Philo the philosopher, and Josephus the historian, speak 
of his rule with thankfulness and fervor; and the praises 
seem well-founded till we come to the last years of his 
life. Then, says Suetonius, he sunk into a 
sloth which neglected every public duty. 
He would not sign commissions, nor change 
the governors once appointed, nor fill up 
the vacancies that death had caused, nor give orders to 
chastise the neighboring tribes that disturbed the border 
countries with their forays. It is true the Empire was so 
little centralized as yet, and so much free life remained 
in the old institutions of the provinces, that distant peo¬ 
ples scarcely suffered from the torpor of the central 


The pleas of 
the later 
critics in fa¬ 
vor of a new 
estimate of 
the charac¬ 
ter of Tibe¬ 
rius. 


At the worst 
they say, 
Rome only 
suffered, while 
the Empire 
was well go¬ 
verned ; 


and this may 
be true, 
though with 
some qualifi¬ 
cation. 


A.D. 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


7 i 


Yet the de¬ 
gradation of 
Rome must 
have reacted 
on the world. 


power, and, once relieved from the abuses of the old 
Republic, were well content if they were 
only left alone. Still the degradation of 
Rome, if real, must have reacted on them, 
for she attracted to the centre the notabilities 
of every land. She sent forth in turn her thought, her 
culture, and her social influence, and the pulsations of 
her moral life were felt in countries far away. The 
heroism of her greatest men raised the tone of the world’s 
thought, and examples of craven fear and meanness 
surely tended to dispirit and degrade it. 

If we return now to the details of his rule at home 
what evidence can his defenders find to stay our judg¬ 
ment ? They can point to the contemporary praises of 
Valerius Maximus, a literary courtier of the 
meanest type, and to the enthusiastic words 
in which Velleius Paterculus speaks of his 
old general’s virtues. But the terms of the 
latter do not sound like a frank soldier’s 
language ; the style is forced and subtle, 
and the value of his praises of Tiberius may well be 
questioned when in the same pages we find a fulsome 
flattery of Augustus and Sejanus that passes all bounds 
of belief. We may note also that his history ends be¬ 
fore the latter period of this reign begins. In default of 
testimony of a stronger kind, attention has 
been drawn to the marks of bias and exag¬ 
geration in the story commonly received, 
to the wild rumors wantonly spread against 
a monarch who had never won his people’s love, and 
lightly credited by writers who reflected the prejudices 
of noble coteries offended by the unyielding firmness of 
his rule. On such evidence it has been thought enough 
to assume that the memoirs of Agrippina, Nero’s mother, 


The testimo¬ 
ny of Valeri¬ 
us Maximus 
and Velleius 
Paterculus is 
not worth 
much. 


The marks 
of bias and 
exaggeration 
in the com¬ 
mon story. 


72 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 14-37. 


The assump¬ 
tions as to 
the memoirs 
of Agrippi¬ 
na, and the 
struggle be¬ 
tween rival 
factions at 
Rome, 

just forfeit 
power of 

and the guilt 
of the victims 
of Tiberius, 
are made 
without any 
evidence. 


blackened the name of Tiberius and had a 
sinister influence on later history; to imagine 
a duel of life and death between the imperial 
government and the partisans of the widow 
and children of Germanicus ; to believe, but 
without proof, that the chief victims of the 
times were all conspirators, who paid the 
of their lives; to point to the malignant 
Sejanus and to fancy that the real cle¬ 
mency of Tiberius took at last a sombre hue 
in the presence of universal treachery. 
Whence this strange mania of disloyalty can 
have come is not made clear, nor how it 
was that of the twenty trusted senators 
chosen for the privy council only two or three were left 
alive, nor why Drusus, the son of Germanicus, was mur¬ 
dered when the fall of Sejanus had removed the tempter. 

Nor can the stories of the debauchery at Caprese 
be lightly set aside without disproof. They left a track 
too lurid on the popular imagination, they 

Nor can we .... . 

set aside the stamped their impress even in vile words 

stories of the .i 1 c .• j 

debauchery on the language of the tunes, and gave a 

at Capreae. fatal impulse to the tendencies of the cor¬ 
rupted art that left the records of its shame among the 
ruins of Pompeii. 

It may seem strange, indeed, as has been urged, that 
a character unstained for many years by gross defects 
should reveal so late in life such darker features. But 


Ancient 
writers may 
have formed 
too harsh an 
opinion of 
his motives 
in some 
cases, 


we have no evidence which will enable us 
to rewrite the story of these later years, 
though on some points we have reason to 
mistrust the fairness of the historians whose 
accounts alone have reached us. They 
do seem to have judged too harshly acts 


A.D. 14-37. 


Tiberius. 


73 


and words which admit a fair and honorable color. 
Their conclusions do not always tally with the facts 
which they bring forward, and seem sometimes incon¬ 
sistent with each other; the number and details of the 
criminal trials which they describe often fail to justify 
their charges of excessive cruelty in the emperor, and 
many of their statements as to his secret feelings and 
designs must have been incapable of proof. It was pro¬ 
bably from prudence and not from mere irresolution that 
the prince continued his provincial governors so long in 
office ; it may have been from true policy rather than 
from jealousy that he recalled Germanicus from useless 
forays on the border lands, from good sense rather than 
from want of spirit that he discouraged all excessive 
honors to himself. In these and many like 
cases Tacitus and other writers may have scandalous d 
given a false reading of his motives, as fjghti PS - t0 ° 
they have certainly reported without weigh¬ 
ing the scandalous gossip that blackened the memory 
of a ruler who discredited his best qualities by ungra¬ 
cious manners, and often made his virtues seem as odious 
as his vices. 

But of the natural character of his younger years we 
know little. We see him trained in a school of rigid re¬ 
pression and hypocrisy, cowering under the 
gibes and censures of Augustus, wavering 
between the extremes of hope and fear, tor¬ 
tured by anxiety at Rhodes, drilled after¬ 
wards into an impassive self-restraint, till 
natural gaiety and frankness disappeared. 

When power came at last it found him 
soured by rancor and resentment, haunted by suspicion 
and mistrust, afraid of the Senate and Germanicus, and 
yet ashamed to own his fears ; too keen-eyed to relish 


but we know 
little of his 
earlier cha¬ 
racter, as he 
was trained 
in a school 
of rigid self- 
restraint and 
dissimula¬ 
tion. 


74 


The Earlier Empire . 


a.d. 37-41. 


flattery, yet dreading any show of independence ; curbed 
by his mother, and spurred on by Sejanus into ferocity, 
inspired by fear ; with an intellectual preference for good 
government, but still with no tenderness or sympathy 
for those whom he ruled. Possibly the partisans of 
Agrippina troubled his peace with their bold words and 
seditious acts, or even conspired to set her children in 
his place, and drove him to stern measures in his own 
defence. At length, when the only man whom he had 
fondly trusted played him false, his old mistrust settled 
into a general contempt for other men and for the re¬ 
straints of their opinion. These safeguards gone, he may 
perhaps have plunged into the depths of cruelty and 
lust and self-contempt which made Pliny speak of him 
as the gloomiest of men—“ tristissimus hominum,”— 
and led him to confess in his letters to the Senate that 
he was suffering from along agony of despairing wretch¬ 
edness. Even from the distant East we read, came the 
scornful letters in which the King of Parthia poured re¬ 
proaches on the cruelty and debaucheries of his brother 
Emperor of the West. 


CHAPTER III. 


CALIGULA.—A.D, 37~4I. 

The tidings of the gloomy emperor’s death were heard 
at Rome with universal joy. The senators and men of 
mark began to breathe more freely after the 
jo y e a f the ral reign of terror ; the people who had suffered 

Tiberius less > ^ ut for wllom little had been done in 

the way of shows and largess, began to cry 



A.D. 37-41. 


75 


Caligula . 

about the streets, “ Tiberius to the Tiber! ” and to talk 
of flinging his dishonored body like carrion to the crows. 

All eyes turned with joy to the young Caius. The 
fond regrets with which they thought of Germanicus, his 
father, the memory of Agrippina’s cruel an datthe 
fate, and the piteous stories of her mur- accession of 
dered children, caused an outburst of gen¬ 
eral sympathy for the last surviving son. In early child¬ 
hood he had been the soldiers’ darling. Carried as a 
baby to the camp upon the Rhine, he had been dressed 

in mimic uniform and called by the familiar 

. named Cali- 

name of Caligula, from the tiny boots he gula by the 

wore like the legionaries around him. The leglonanes > 
mutinous troops who were deaf to the general’s appeal 
were shamed into submission when they saw their little 
nursling carried for safety from their camp. For some 
years little had been known of him. After Agrippina’s 
fall he had been brought up in seclusion by his grand¬ 
mother Antonia, and thence summoned to Capreae by 
the old Emperor while still a youth. He showed at that 
time a marked power of self-restraint, be- w h 0 had 
trayed no resentments or regrets, and baf- clpiemwith 
fled the spies who were set to report his Tiberius, 
words. Yet Tiberius, who watched him narrowly, is 
said to have discerned the latent passions that were to 
break out one day in the license of absolute power ; but 
still he advanced him to the rank of the pontificate, al¬ 
lowed him to be thought his probable successor, and 
named him in his will as co-heir with the young Ti¬ 
berius, his grandchild. Besides this the 

0 and was 

praefect Macro was secretly won over to named in his 
secure the support of the praetorian troops, heir with the 
and together they waited for and perhaps grand " 

hastened the death of the old man. No 


7 6 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 37-41. 


such support, indeed, seemed needed, for at Rome there 
was a popular movement in his favor. The people 
rushed into the Senate House with acclamations when he 
came, they showered endearing names upon him, the 
, , . claims of his young cousin were ignored, 

whose claims ^ u 

however, ’ and at the age of twenty-four Caligula be- 
were ignored. came so | e m0 narcli of the Roman 

world. The young sovereign was welcomed with a gen¬ 
eral outburst of excitement. Not only in the city which 
for long years had not seen its ruler, but even in the 
provinces, there were signs everywhere of wide-spread 
joy. In three months more than one hundred and sixty 
thousand victims fell in thanksgiving upon the altars. 
The young sovereign could scarcely be unmoved amid 

The general g enera -l gladness. Senate, soldiers, 

gladness, people, all were lavish in their honors; 
the treasury was full of the hoards that had been gather¬ 
ing there for years; there was nothing yet to cross his 
will or cloud his joy. His first acts were in unison with 
the glad tone of public feeling, and did much to increase 

return oftho The ex ^ es were brought back from the 

exiles > lonely islands where they pined ; the works 

of the bold writers, Labienus and the like, were allowed 
once more to pass from hand to hand ; the ardor of the 
, . . informers cooled, and a deaf ear was turned 

and signs of 

brighter to warning letters ; the independence of the 

times. . -ill 

magistrates was re-asserted,, and the ac¬ 
counts of the imperial budget fully published. Some 
show was even made awhile of restoring the elections 
to the popular vote, while a round of civic spectacles 
was arranged upon a scale of long disused magnifi¬ 
cence. 

The bright hopes thus raised were all shortlived. The 
extravagant popularity which had greeted him at first, 


A - D - 3 7 ~ 4 I - Caligula. 77 

the dizzy sense of undisputed power, were 
enough to turn a stronger head. His nerv- tS's^opSari- 
ous system had always been weak. Epilep- power turned f 
tic from his boyhood, he suffered also from his head - 
constant sleeplessness, and even when he slept his rest 
was broken with wild dreams. His health gave way soon 
after his accession ; and the anxiety on all sides was so 
intense, the prayers offered for his recovery so excessive, 
that they seemed to have finally disturbed the balance 
of his reason. Henceforth his life is one strange med 
ley of grandiose aims and incoherent fancies, relieved 
at times by lucid intervals of acute and mocking insight, 
but rendered horrible by a fiend’s cruelty and a satyr’s 
lust. In a short time Rome was startled by the news 
that its young Emperor claimed to be a god already. It 
was not enough for him to wait to be can¬ 
onized like others after death. He towered divin/ilSnors. 
already above the kings of the earth ; the 
one thing wanting was to enjoy divine honors while he 
lived. To this end temples must rise at once to do him 
honor; priesthoods be established for his service; count¬ 
less statues of the gods be brought from Greece and take 
in exchange the likeness of his head for their own. The 
palace was extended to the Forum, and the valley spanned 
with stately arches, that the shrine of Castor and Pollux 
might serve as a sort of vestibule to his own house, and that 
he might take his seat as by right between the heavenly 
brothers and be the object of admiring worship. 

From a god something more is looked for than the 
works of man, and so he was always dreaming of great 
schemes. He threw a bridge across from p Ianned great 
Baiae to Puteoli, upwards of three miles in schemes, 
length, and marched along it in state to furnish a two 
days’ wonder to the world. He thought of building a city 

G 


78 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 37-41. 


upon the highest Alps ; with greater wisdom he wished 
to cut a channel through the Corinthian isthmus, and sent 
even to take the measurements needed for the work. 

The heathen poets have often sung of the envy and 
jealousy of heaven ; and the Emperor for a like cause 
Could bear no could brook no rival. His young cousin 
rival greatness, Tiberius must die to expiate the crime of 
being once put upon a level with him ; his father-in-law, 
Silanus, and his grandmother, Antonia, paid the forfeit 
of their lives for having formed too low an estimate of 
his majesty. Indeed, any eminence might be danger¬ 
ous near him. Bald himself, he could not pass a fine 
head of hair without the wish and sometimes too the 
order that it should be shaved quite bare. He prided 
himself upon his eloquence, and two men nearly suf 
fered for the reputation of their style. The first was 
as in the case Seneca, then much in vogue, who was saved 
of Seneca, only by a friend’s suggestion that he was 
too far gone in a decline to live. The other, Domitius 
Afer, was a brilliant orator and notable informer. In 
and Domitius va ^ n h a d ^ ie foreseen his danger and tried 
Afer - to disarm jealousy by flattering words. He 

set up a statue to the Emperor to note the fact that he 
was consul a second time at the age of twenty-seven ; 
but this was taken ill, as a reflection on the monarch’s 
youth and unconstitutional procedure. Caius, who prided 
himself on his fine style, came one day to the Senate 
with a long speech ready-prepared against him. Afer 
was too wary to reply, but falling to the ground as if 
thunderstruck at eloquence so marvellous, only culled 
from memory the choicest passages of what he heard 
with comments on their beauties, saying that he feared 
the orator more than the master of the legions. The 
Emperor, delighted at praises from so good a judge, 


a.d. 37-41. Caligula . 79 

looked on him henceforth with favor. His spleen was 
moved not only by living worth but even by Was j ea i ous 
the glory of the dead. He threw down the the 

statues of the famous men that graced the 
Campus Martius. He thought of sweeping from the 
public libraries the works of Virgil and Livy, but con¬ 
tented himself with harshly criticising them. The titles 
even that called up the memory of illustrious deeds pro¬ 
voked his umbrage ; the old families must put aside the 
surnames of the Republic, and the Pompeian race drop 
the dangerous epithet of “ Great.” 

The gods, it seemed, were above moral laws, for the 
old fables told of their amours without disguise or shame. 
Caius would be like Jupiter in this ; indulge Thought 
at once each roving fancy and change his h|,nsc ; lf t 
wives from day to day. Invited at one moral laws, 
time to a noble Roman’s marriage feast, he stopped the 
rite and himself claimed the bride, boasting that he 
acted like Augustus and the Romulus of old time. His 
lewdness spared no rank nor ties of blood, but of all he 
loved Caesonia best, who was famous only for her wan¬ 
tonness. Pie dressed her like an Amazon and made 
her ride to the reviews ; and when she bore a child he 
recognised it for his own by the ferocity vdth which the 
infant seemed to scratch and claw everything she saw. 

The oracles of old, from which men tried to learn the 
will of heaven, were couched often in dark mysterious 
terms, and in this spirit he delighted to affected 
perplex and to alarm. He summoned the [he S anaent ke 
senators from their beds at the dead of oracles, 
night, frightened them with strange sounds about them 
in the palace, then sung to them awhile and let them go. 
When the people clamored for a legal tariff of the new 
tolls and dues, he had one written out, but in characters 


8o 


The Earlier Empire . 


a.d. 37-41. 


so small and so high-posted that no eyes could read it. 
His caprices often took a darker color. He heard that 
when he was once sick rash men had vowed 

and indulged . .... . . ... .. 

in wild to give their lives or face the gladiators if 

caprices. h e grew better, and with grim humor he 

obliged them to prove their loyalty, even to the death. 

We may see by the description of an eye-witness how 
great was the terror caused by these fitful moods of fero¬ 
city and folly. At Alexandria the Emperor’s claims to 
deity had been regarded as impious by the Jews, but 
readily acquiesced in by the Greeks, who caught eagerly 
at any plea to persecute their hated rivals, and wreak the 
grudge of a long-standing feud. The synagogues were 
profaned with statues, the Jewish homes were pillaged 
without mercy, and complaints of disloyalty forwarded 
to Rome. The sufferers on their side sent an embassy 
to plead their cause, and at its head the learned Philo, 
who has left us an account to tell us how they fared. 
They were not received in state, in the presence of grave 
counsellors, but after long delay the two deputations of 
the Alexandrians and Jews were allowed to wait upon 
the Emperor while he was looking at some country 
houses near the bay of Naples. The Jews came bowing 
to the ground before him, but despaired when they saw 
the look of sarcasm on his face, and were accosted with 
the words, “ So you are the impious wretches who will 
not have me for a god, but worship one whose name 
you dare not mention,” and to their horror he pro¬ 
nounced the awful name. Their enemies, overjoyed at 
this rebuff, showed their glee with words and looks of 
insult, and their spokesman charged the Jews with wan¬ 
ton indifference to the Emperor’s health and safety. 
“ Not so, Lord Cains,” they protested loudly, “ for thrice 
we have sacrificed whole hecatombs in thy behalf.” 


A.D. 37-41. 


Caligula. 


81 


“ Maybe,” was the reply, “but ye sacrificed for me, and 
not to me.” This second speech completed their dis¬ 
may, and left them all aghast with fear. But almost as 
he spoke, he scampered off, and went hurrying through 
the house, prying all about the room upstairs and down, 
cavilling at what he saw, and giving orders on his way. 
while the poor Jews had to follow in his train from place 
to place, amid the mockery and ribald jests of those 
about them. At length, after some direction given, he 
turned and said in the same breath to them, “ Why do 
you not eat pork ? ” They tried to answer calmly that 
national customs often varied : some people, for exam¬ 
ple, would not touch the flesh of lambs. “ Quite right, 
too,” he said, “ for it is poor tasteless stuff.” Then the 
insults and the gibes went on again. Presently he asked 
a question about their claims to civil status, but cut them 
short in the long answer which they gave him, and set 
off at a run into the central hall, to have some blinds of 
transparent stone drawn up against the sun. He came 
back in a quieter mood, and asked what they had to 
say, but without waiting for the answer hurried off again 
to look at some paintings in a room close by. " At last,” 
says Philo, “ God in his mercy to us softened his haul 
heart, and he let us go alive, saying as he sent us off, 
‘ After all they are to be pitied more than blamed, poor 
fools, who cannot believe I am a god.’ ” 

His devices to refill the treasury, which his extrava¬ 
gance had emptied, showed no lack of original resource, 
though his plans were not quite after the rules of finan¬ 
cial science. He put up to auction all the 
heirlooms of the past that had been stored 
in the imperial household, took an active 
part even in the sale, pointed out the rare 
old pieces with all the relish of a connoisseur, and gave 


His devices 
to refill his 
exhausted 
coffers. 


82 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 37-41. 


the family pedigree of each. He made his courtiers 
push the prices up ; and when one of them was sleepy he 
took each motion of the nodding head for a higher bid, 
and had a few gladiators knocked down to him at the cost 
of millions. When the news came of his daughter’s birth 
he publicly bemoaned the costly burdens of paternity, 
and asked his loyal subjects for their doles to help him 
rear and portion the princes. He stood even at the en¬ 
trance of his house on New Year’s Day to receive Avith 
his own hands the presents showered on him by the 
crowd as they came to court. Oftentimes he did not 
stay to devise such far-fetched measures, 
Resorted to but simply marked down wealthy men for 

confiscation. L J 

confiscation, betook himself as far as Gaul 

in quest of plunder, and filled his coffers at the expense 

of the provincials. Even without such poor excuse he 

showed meantime a cruelty that seemed like the mere 

wantonness of a distempered fancy, as when he invited 

men to see him open a neAv bridge in state, 

Morbid and had the machinery contrived to fling 

ferocity. # J 0 

croAvds into the water ; or Avhen he laughed 
as he sat between the consuls and told them that a sin¬ 
gle word from him Avould make their heads roll off their 
necks ; or when, to give his guests more zest for what 
they ate, he had the executioner ushered in to do his 
work before their eyes. 

One fiercer taste he seemed to lack—the love of Avar. 
But, suddenly reminded that recruits were Avanted to 
make up the ranks of his Batavian body- 

The cam- 1 J 

paign in guard, he took a fancy to a campaign in 
Germany, perhaps in memory of his father’s 
name. Preparations were made on a grand scale, and 
he started for the seat of Avar, hurrying sometimes in 
such hot haste that his guards could scarcely keep be- 


A.D. 37-41. 


Caligula. 


83 


side him, and then again, lolling in lordly ease, called 
out the people from the country towns to sweep and water 
all the roads. As soon as he had reached the camp he 
made a great parade of the discipline of earlier days, 
degraded general officers who weje late in coming with 
their troops, and dismissed centurions from the service on 
trifling grounds or none at all. Little came of all this 
show. A princely refugee from Britain asked for shel¬ 
ter. The Rhine was crossed, a parody of a night attack 
was acted out, and imposing letters were sent to the Se¬ 
nate to describe the submission of the Britons and the 
terror of the Germans. Then he hurried with his legions 
to the ocean, with all the pomp and circumstance of war, 
while none could guess the meaning of the march. At 
last when they could go no further he bade the soldiers 
pick up the shells that lay upon the shore 
and carry home their trophies as if to show Ludicrous 
in strange burlesque the vanity of schemes 
of conquest. Before he left the camp, however, the wild 
fancy seized him to avenge the insult offered to his ma¬ 
jesty in childhood, and he resolved to decimate the le¬ 
gions that had mutinied long years before. He had 
them even drawn up in close order and unarmed before 
him, but they suspected danger and confronted him so 
boldly that he feared to give the word and slunk away 
to Rome. On his return he seemed ashamed to cele¬ 
brate the triumph for which he had made costly prepara¬ 
tions, forbade the Senate to vote him any honors, but 
complained of them bitterly when they obeyed. 

Still his morbid fancy could not rest, and wild projects 

flitted through his brain. He would degrade Rome from 

her place among the cities and make Alex- TT . 

r 0 . His wild 

andria, or even his birth-place, Antium, the dreams of 
capital of the world. But first he medita- 


massacre. 


84 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 41-54. 


ted a crowning exploit to usher in the change with fitting 
pomp. It was nothing less than the massacre of all the 
citizens of mark. He kept two note-books, which he 
.called his “ sword ” and “ dagger,” and in them were 
the names of all the senators and knights whom he 
doomed to death. But the cup was full already, and his 
time was come, though he had only had three years of 
power to abuse. He had often outraged with mocking 
and foul words the patience of Cassius Choerea, a tri¬ 
bune of the guard. At last Choerea could bear no more, 
and after sounding other officers of rank, who had been 
suspected of conspiracy already, and who knew their 
lives to be in danger, he resolved to strike at once. 
They took the Emperor unawares in a narrow passage 
at the theatre, thrust him through and through with 
hasty blows, and left him pierced with thirty wounds 
upon the floor. 


CHAPTER IV. 

CLAUDIUS.—A.D. 4I-54. 

Few credited at first the tidings of the death of Caius ; 
many thought the story was only spread by him in some 

The hesitation mad freak to test their feelings, and so they 

of the Senate feared to show either i’oy or grief. When at 
after the mur- 

der of Caius last they found it was true, and that Caeso- 
nia and his child were also murdered, they noted in 
their gossip that all the Caesars who bore the name of 
Caius had died a violent death, and then they waited 
quietly to see what the Senate and the soldiers thought 
of doing. The Senate met at once in the Capitol, where 



A.D. 41 - 54 . 


Claudius. 




the consuls summoned to their guard the cohorts of the 
watch. There, with the memorials of the past, the to • 
kens of ancient freedom, round them, they could take 
counsel with becoming calmness and dignity. The Em¬ 
peror was dead, and there seemed no claimant with a 
title to the throne. Should they venture to elect a sov¬ 
ereign, regardless of the warnings of the past, or should 
they set up a commonwealth once more, and breathe 
fresh life into the shadowy forms about them ? The dis¬ 
cussion lasted all that day, and the night lasted till 
passed without a final vote. But it was all nightfall, 
idle talk, for the praetorians meanwhile had made their 
choice. The tidings of the Emperor’s death soon reached 
the camp, and drew the soldiers to the city. Too late 
to defend or even to avenge their sovereign, But the sol _ 

they dispersed in quest of booty, and roamed diers mean- 
J A 1 J time had found 

through the palace at their will. One of the Claudius, 
plunderers passing by the alcove of a room espied the 
feet of some one hidden behind the half-closed curtains. 
Curious to see who it might be, he dragged him out, and 
recognized the face of Claudius, the late Emperor’s un¬ 
cle. He showed him to his comrades who were near, 
and, possibly in jest, they saluted him as carr i e dhimto 
their new prince, raised him at once upon the cam P> 
their shoulders, and carried him in triumph to the camp. 
The citizens who saw him carried by marked his piteous 
look of terror, and thought the poor wretch was carried 
to his doom. The Senate heard that he was in the camp, 
but only sent to bid him take his place among them, and 
heard seemingly without concern that he was there de¬ 
tained by force. But the next day found them in differ¬ 
ent mood. The populace had been clamoring to have a 
monarch, the prcetorians had sworn obedi- and saluted 
cnce to their new found emperor, the city him Emperor. 


86 


The Earlier E?npire. 


A.D. 41-54. 


guards had slipped away, and the Senate, divided 
and disheartened, had no course left them but submis¬ 
sion. 

Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, the son of Dru- 
sus, grandson of Livia Augusta, suffered in early years 
In early life he from lingering diseases which left him weak 
in mind and both in body and in mind. 1 he Romans 
body and had comm only had little tenderness for sickly 

b-^en despised J J 

or neglected. children. Antonia and his mother even 
spoke of him as a monster, as a thing which nature had 
rough-hewn but never finished; while his grandmother 
would not deign to speak to him except by messenger or 
letter. Though brought up in the palace he was little 
cared for, was left to the tender mercies of a muleteer, 
of whose rough usage he spoke bitterly in after life, and 
even when he came to manhood was not allowed to 
show himself in public life or hope for any of the offices 
of State. We may still read the letters written by Au¬ 
gustus to his wife, in which he speaks of him as too im¬ 
becile for any public functions, too awkward and un¬ 
gainly to take a prominent place even in the circus at 
the show. The only honor which he gave him was a 
place in the priesthood of the augurs, and at his death 
he left him a very paltry legacy. Nor did Tiberius think 
, , more highly of him. He gave him only the 

He had sorry J 

treatment poor grace of consular ornaments; and 
from 1 >benus w ] len h e as k ec [ t 0 have the consulship itself 

his uncle took no further notice than to send him a few 
gold pieces to buy good cheer with in the holidays. His 
, „ . nephew Cains made him consul, but encour- 

and Laius, 

aged the rough jests with which his cour¬ 
tiers bantered him. If he came late among the guests 
at dinner they shifted their seats and shouldered him 
away till he was tired of looking for an empty place ; if 


A.D. 41-54. 


Claudius. 


87 


lie fell asleep, as was his wont, they plastered up his 
mouth with olives, or put shoes upon his hands, that he 
might rub his eyes with them when he woke. He was 
sent by the Senate into Germany to congratulate the 
Emperor on his supposed successes ; but Caius took it 
ill, and thought the choice of him was such a slight that 
he had the deputation flung into the river. Ever after 
he was the very last to be asked in the Senate for his 
vote, and when he was allowed to be one of the new 
priests the office was saddled with such heavy fees that 
his household goods had to be put up to ,. , , , 

0 . and indulged 

auction to defray them. After such treat- in coarse 

ment from his kinsmen it was no wonder hablts * 

that he sank into coarse and vulgar ways, indulged his 

natural liking for low company, ate largely and drank 

hardly, and turned to dice for his amusement. Yet he 

had also tastes of a much higher order, kept but he had 

Greeks of literary culture round him, stu- a ^ e bterary 

died hard and with real interest, and at the 

advice of the historian Livy took to writing and took to 

history himself. His first choice of subject writing 

J history. 

was ambitious, for he tried to deal with the 
troubled times that followed Julius Caesar’s death ; but 
he was soon warned to leave so dangerous a theme. He 
wrote also largely on the history of Etruria and Car¬ 
thage, and later authors often used the materials col¬ 
lected by or for him. Of the latter of the two works 
we read that a courtly club was formed at Alexandria to 
read it regularly through aloud from year to year. 

Such was the man who in his fiftieth year was raised 

to the Empire by a soldier’s freak, to rule in name but 

to be in fact the puppet of his wives and AsEmperorIie 

freedmen. These were the real governors was ruled by 

. . . - . - his wives and 

of the world, and their intrigues and rival- freedmen. 




88 The Earlier Empire. a.d. 41 - 54 . 

ries and lust and greed have left their hateful stamp 
upon his reign. 

The freedmen had for a long time played an import¬ 
ant part in the domestic life of Rome ; for the household 
slaves that were so numerous at this time in every fami- 

The domestic ty °f ample means could look commonly 
position of the f or freedom after some years of faithful ser- 

freedmen of ' 

Rome, vice, though their old master still had legal 

claims upon them, and custom and old associations 
bound them to their patron and his children. They 
haunted the houses of the wealthy, filled all the offices 
of trust, and ministered to their business and pleasures. 
Among them there were many men of refinement and 
high culture, natives of Greece and Asia, at least as well 
educated as their masters, and useful to them in a hun¬ 
dred ways as stewards, secretaries, physicians, poets, 
confidants and friends. The Emperor’s household was 
organized like that of any noble. Here, too, there were 
,. , . slaves for menial work, and freedmen for 

and in the im¬ 
perial house- the posts of trust. The imperial position 

was too new and ill-defined, the temper of 
the people too republican as yet for men of high social 
rank and dignity to be in personal attendance in the pa¬ 
lace ; offices like those of high steward, chamberlain, 
great seal, and treasurer to the monarch had the stigma 
of slavery still branded on them, and were not such as 
noblemen could covet. But these were already posts of 
high importance, and much of the business of state was 
already in the freedmen’s hands. For by the side of the 
Senate and the old curule officers of the Republic, the 
Empire had set up, both in the city and the provinces, a 
new system of administrative machinery, of which the 
Emperor was the centre and mainspring. To issue in¬ 
structions, check accounts, receive reports, and keep the 


Claudius. 


A.D. 41-54. 


89 


needful registers became a daily increasing labor, and 
many skilful servants soon were needed to 

- . Important 

be in constant attendance in the palace, offices filled 
The funeral inscriptions of the time show by them ' 
that the official titles in the imoerial household were be- 
coming rapidly more numerous as the functions were 
more and more subdivided. When the ruler was strong 
and self-contained, his servants took their proper places 
as valets-de-chambre , ushers, and clerks, while a privi¬ 
leged few were confidential agents and advisers. When 
he was inexperienced or weak, they took the reins out 
of his hands, and shamefully abused their power. Much 
too low in rank to have a political career before them, 
they were not weighted with the responsibilities of power, 
and could not act like the cabinet ministers of modern 
Europe. The theory of the constitution quite ignored 
them, and they were only creatures of the Emperor, 
who was not the fountain of honor, like later kings, and 
could not make them noble if he would. 

As high ambitions were denied them, and they could 
not openly assert their talents, they fell back commonly 
on lower aims and meaner arts. They lied mi . 

J . Their sordid 

and intrigued and flattered to push their ambition 
way to higher place ; they used their power 
to gratify a greedy avarice or sensual lust. Wealth was 
their first and chief desire, and their master’s confidence 
once gained, riches flowed in upon them from all sides. 
To get easy access to the sovereign’s ear was a privi¬ 
lege which all were glad to buy. The suitors who came 
to ask a favor, a post of profit or of honor ; the litigants 
who feared for the goodness of their cause and wished 
to have a friend at court; vassal princes and nume _ 

eager to stand well in the Emperor’s graces , [uni t ie PP ° r * 

town councillors longing for some special 


9 ° 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 41 - 54 - 


boon or for relief from costly burdens ; provincials of every 
class and country ready to buy at any cost the substantial 
gift of Roman franchise. Hundreds such as these all 
sought the favorite in the antechamber, and schemed and 
trafficked for his help. There was no time to be lost, in¬ 
deed, for a monarch’s favor is an unstable thing, and 
shrewd adventurers like themselves were ever plotting to 
displace them. At any moment they might be disgraced, 
so they grasped every chance that brought 
wealththem gain and speedily amassed colossal 
fortunes. Men told a story at the time with 
gleethatwhen Claudius complained of scanty means a by¬ 
stander remarked that he would soon be rich enough if two 
of his favorite freedmen would admit him into partnership. 

Now for the first time the personal attendants take a 
prominent place in public thought, and history is forced 
to note their names and chronicle their doings, and the 
story of their influence passes from the scandalous gos¬ 
sip of the palace to the pages of the gravest writers. In 
the days of his obscurity they had shared the meaner for¬ 
tunes of their master, enlivened his dullness by their wit, 
and catered for his literary tastes. They had provided 
theories of style and learning and research, though they 
could not give him sense to use them, and now they 
were doubtless eager to help their patron to make his¬ 
tory, not to write it. Greedily they followed him to the 
palace, and swooped upon the Empire as their prey. 

Two of his old companions towered above all the 
rest, Pallas and Narcissus. The former had 

Pallas, 

been with Claudius from childhood, and 
filled the place of keeper of the privy purse, or steward 
of the imperial accounts. In such a post, with such a 
master, it was easy for him to enrich himself, and he 
did not neglect his opportunities. But his pride was 


A. D. 41 - 54 . 


Claudius. 


9 i 


Narcissus. 


even more notable than his wealth. He would not 
deign to speak even to his slaves, but gave them bis 
commands by gestures, or if that was not enough 
by written orders. His arrogance did not even spare the 
nobles and the Senate, but they well deserved such treat¬ 
ment by their servile meanness. The younger Pliny 
tells us some years afterwards how it moved his spleen 
to find in the official documents that the Senate had 
passed a vote of thanks to Pallas and a large money 
grant, and that he had declined the gift and said he 
would be content with modest poverty, if only he could 
be still of dutiful service to his lord. A modest poverty 
of many millions ! 

Narcissus was the Emperor’s secretary, and as such 
familiar alike with state secrets and with his masters’ 
personal concerns. He was always at his 
side, to jog his memory and guide his judg¬ 
ment; in the Senate, at the law courts, in cabinet coun¬ 
cil, at the festive board, nothing could be done without 
his knowledge; in most events of moment his influence 
may be traced. Men chafed, no doubt, at the presump¬ 
tion of the upstart, and told with malicious glee of the 
retort made by the freedman of the conspirator Camil- 
lus, who, when examined in the council-chamber by Nar¬ 
cissus and asked what he would have done himself if his 
master had risen to the throne, answered, “ I should 
have known my place, and held my tongue behind his 
chair.” They heard with pleasure too that when he 
went on a mission to the mutinous soldiery in Britain, 
and tried to harangue them from their general’s tribune, 
they would not even listen to him but drowned his voice 
with the songs of the Saturnalia, the festive time at Rome, . 
when the slaves kept holiday and took their master’s 
places. But at Rome none dared to be so bold, though 


9 2 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 41-54. 


bis influence at court stirred the jealousy of many, who 
whispered to each other that it was no wonder he grew 
rich so fast when he made so much by peculation out of 
the great works which he prompted Claudius to under¬ 
take, and one of which at least, the outlet for the Lu- 
crine Lake, caused almost a public scandal by its fa.il- 


Polybius. 


ure. 

After them came Polybius, whose literary skill had 
often served his patron in good stead and gave him con¬ 
stant access to his ear. No sinister motives 
can be traced to him ; at worst we hear that 
he was vain, and thought himself on a level with the 
best, and liked to take the air with a consul at each side. 
He had cool impudence enough, we read ; for in the 
theatre, when the people pointed at him as they heard a 
line about a “ beggar on horseback” who was hard to 
brook, he quoted at once another line from the same 
poet of the “ kings that had arisen from a low estate.” 

Callistus lent to the new comers in the palace his long 
experience of the habits of a court. He had served un¬ 
der the last ruler, could suit his ways to 
please his new master so unlike the old, and 
soon took a high place among the ruling clique by his 
tact and knowledge of the world of Rome. Felix, too, 
whom we read of in the story of St. Paul, 
gained, possibly through his brother Pallas, 
the post of governor of Judea, but must have had rare 
qualities to marry, as Suetonius tells us, three queens in 
succession. Posides was the soldier of the 
party. His military powers, shown in the 
sixteen days’ campaign of Claudius in Britain, raised 
him above other generals in his master’s eyes, like his 
stately buildings which Juvenal mentions as out-topping 
the Capitol. There is no need to carry on the list. 


Callistus. 


Felix. 


Posides. 


A.D. 41-54. 


Claudius. 


93 


These are only the most favored of the party, the best 
endowed with natural gifts, the most trusted confidants 
of Ccesar. 


The first care of the new government was to reassure 
the public mind. Chcerea and his accom- 

v I he new 

piices must die, indeed ; for the murder of government 
an Emperor was a fatal thing to overlook, the pubhc'™ 
and they were said to have threatened the mind > 
life of Claudius himself. For all besides there was a 
general amnesty. Marked deference was shown by the 
new ruler to the Senate, and the bold words 

. and to con- 

latterly spoken by its members were un- ciliate all 
noticed. Few honors were accepted in his 
own name, while the statues of Cains were withdrawn 
from public places, his acts expunged from all official 
registers, and his claims to divine honors ignored, as 
those of Tiberius had been before. The people were 
kept in good humor by the public shows and merry-ma¬ 
kings, as the soldiers had been by the promise of fifteen 
hundred sesterces a man ; and so the new reign began 
amid signs of general contentment. 

The next care of the little clique was to keep their 
master in good humor, to flatter his vanities and gratify 
his tastes, while they played upon his weak¬ 
ness and governed in his name. This they 
did for years with rare success, thanks to 
their intimate knowledge of his character 
and to the harmony that prevailed among themselves. 
He had all the coarse Roman’s love for public games, and 
was never weary of seeing gladiators fight; 
so they helped him to indulge his tastes and 
make merry with the populace of Rome. 

As the common round of spectacles was not enough, 
new shows must be lavishly provided. From the early 

H 


Claudius 
kept in good 
humor by 
his freedmen; 


amused with 
spectacles 


94 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 41-54- 


morning till the entertainment closed he was always in 
his seat, eager to see the cages of the wild beasts opened 
and to lose nothing of the bloody sport. The spectators 
could always see him, with his wagging head and the broad 
grin upon his slobbering mouth, could hear him often 
crack his poor jokes on what went on, sometimes noted 
with amusement how he hurried with his staggering legs 
across the arena to coax or force the reluctant gladiators 
to resume their deadly work. They noted also that he 
had the statue of Augustus first veiled and then removed 
from the scene of bloodshed, as if the cruel sport that 
amused the living must offend the saintly dead. 

He was fond also of good cheer, so fond of it that 
he sometimes lost sight of his dignity. One day as he 
sat upon the judgment-seat he smelt the sa- 
che l f°° d vor a burnt-offering in a temple close at 
hand, and breaking up the court in haste, 
he hurried to take his seat at dinner with the priests. 
At another time, in the Senate, when the discussion 
turned on licensing the public-houses, he gravely spoke 
about the merits of the different wine-shops where he 
had been treated in old days. So feasting was the order 
of the day ; great banquets followed one upon the other, 
and hundreds of guests were bidden to his table, at which 
few ate or drank so freely or so coarsely as himself. 

But he had more royal tastes than these, for he aspired 
to be a sort of Solomon upon the seat of justice. As 
„ magistrate or as assessor by the curule 

His love for ° 

judicial chair, or in the Senate, when grave cases 

' were debated, he would sit for hours listen¬ 

ing to the pleaders or examining the witnesses, sometimes 
showing equity and insight, sometimes so frivolous and 
childish in his comments, that litigants and lawyers lost 
their patience altogether. 


A.D. 41-54. 


Claudius . 


95 


As the father of the people, it seemed one of his first 
cares to find his children bread, and no little time and 
thought were spent by him or by his agents 

. . . , . , and care for 

111 seeing that the granaries were filled and provisioning 

the markets well supplied. Yet the poor 

were not always grateful, for once when prices rose they 

crowded in upon him in the Forum and pelted him with 

hard words and crusts of bread, till he was glad to slink 

out by a back door to his palace. For his 

was certainly the familiarity that breeds appreciated 

contempt; his presence, speech, and cha- pf e the pe0 ‘ 

racter were too ungainly and undignified 

to impose respect; and even in his proclamations his 

advisers let him air his folly to the world. Sometimes 

he spoke in them about his personal foi- . 

Till Want of digni- 

bles ; confessed that he had a hasty tern- tyinhispro- 
1 , ,1 . ., 1 i clamations. 

per, but that it soon passed away ; and 
said that in years gone by he had acted like a simpleton 
to disarm the jealousy of Caius. Then again he put out 
public edicts as full of household cures and recipes as 
the talk of any village gossip. 

Fie had little taste for military exploits ; yet once it 
was thought prudent to excite his martial ardor, that he 
might have the pleasure of a real triumph, 
like the commanders of old days. At the ^nd^ctor^ 
crisis of a campaign in Britain, when the arranged for 
preparations had been made for victory, 
the general sent to summon Claudius to the seat of war. 
All had been done to make the journey pleasant, the 
carriage even had been specially arranged to make it 
easy for him to while away the time by the games of 
dice which he loved so well; and though the waves and 
winds were not so complaisant or so regardful of his 
comforts, he reached at last the distant island, in time to 


9<5 


The Earlier Empire . a . d . 41-54. 


receive the submission of the native princes and to be 
hailed as Emperor on the battle-field. 

Meanwhile the freedmen reaped their golden harvest; 
having early agreed upon a common course of action, 

, , they divided the spoil without dispute. 

Scandalous 

traffic of the They trafficked in the offices of state, be¬ 

stowed commissions in the army, sold the 
verdicts of the law courts, and put up the Emperor’s fa¬ 
vor to the highest bidder. One privilege, which millions 
. „ . craved, the citizenship of Rome, was above 

especially in 1 

the grant of all a source of income to the favored freed- 
citizenship, men> w h 0 could get their master’s signature 

to any deed. He has, indeed, in history the credit of a 
,. , liberal policy of incorporation, and speeches 

which may AJ 1 # 1 

account for are put into his mouth in which he argues 

in^hat re- lty from the best precedents of earlier days in 
spect - favor of opening the doors to alien races. 

It may be that his study of the past had taught him 
something ; but it is likely that the interest of his minis¬ 
ters did more to further a course which in their hands 
was so lucrative a form of jobbery. It was a common 
jest to say that the market was so overstocked at last 
that the franchise went for a mere song. 

But these, after all, were petty gains, and they needed 
a more royal road to wealth. They found it in a new 
kind of proscription. They marked out for 
death and confiscation those who had 
houses or gardens which they coveted, 
made out the rich men to be malcontents 
and the city to be full of traitors. It was 
easy to work upon the Emperor’s fears, for he had al¬ 
ways been an abject craven, and was always fancying 
hidden daggers. A telling story, a mysterious warning, 
or a dream invented for the purpose, almost anything 


They confis¬ 
cate the pro¬ 
perty of the 
rich by work¬ 
ing on their 
master’s fears, 


A.D. 41-54. 


Claudius. 


97 


could throw him off his balance and make him give the 
fatal order. Nor did they always wait for that. One 
day a centurion came to give in his report. He had, in 
pursuance of his orders, killed a man of consular rank. 
Claudius had never known of it before, but approved 
the act when he heard the soldiers praised for being so 
ready to avenge their lord. When the list was made 
out in later times, it was believed that thirty-five 
members of the Senate and some three hundred knights 
fell as victims to the caprice or greed of the clique that 
governed in the name of Claudius, many of them with¬ 
out any forms of justice, or at best with the hurried 
mockery of a trial in the palace. So fatal to a people 
may be the weakness of its rulers. It was 

\ # who soon 

noticed as a scandalous proof of his reck- forgot that 
lessness in bloodshed that he soon forgot thefataf 1Vn 
even what had passed, and bade the very order * 
men to supper whose death-warrant he had signed, and 
wondered why they were so late in coming. 

The guilt of these atrocities must be shared also by 
his wives. Of these Claudius married sev¬ 
eral in succession, but two especially stand 
out in history for the horror of all times. 

Messalina’s name has passed into a byword for un¬ 
bounded wantonness without disguise or shame. Her 
fatal influence ruined or degraded all she 
touched. The pictures painted of her in 
old writers give no redeeming features in her character, 
no single unselfish aim or mental grace, nothing but 
sensual appetites in a form of clay. Her beauty gained 
her an easy command over her husband’s heart, but not 
content with that her wanton fancy ranged TT , . . 

through every social order and shrank from wantonness 
no impure advances Some whom she 


His wives. 


Messalina. 


9 8 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 41-54. 


and cruelty. 


tempted had repelled her in their virtue or disgust, but 
her slighted love soon turned to hatred, and on one false 
plea or other she took the forfeit of their lives. For she 
had no scruples or compunction, no shrinking from the 
sight of blood ; and pity, if she ever felt it, was with her 
only a mere passing thrill, a counter-irritant to other 
feelings of the flesh. The Roman Jezebel 
coveted, we read, the splendid gardens of 
Lucullus, and to get them had a lying charge of treason 
brought against Valerius Asiaticus, their owner. His 
defence was so psthetic as to move all those who heard 
him in the Emperor’s chamber, and to make even Mes- 
salina weep. But as she hurried out to dry her tears she 
whispered to her agent, who stood beside, that for all 
this the accused must not escape. 

For a long time she was wise enough to court or 
humor the confederates of the palace, and 
so far her course of crime was easy. At 
last she threw off such restraints of prudence, 
turned upon Polybius, who had taken her favors in too 
serious a mood, and rid herself for ever of 
Polybius) hi s ill-timed jealousy. The other freedmen 
took his fate as a warning of defiance to 
them all, looked for a struggle of life and death, and 
watched their opportunity to strike. The chance soon 
and causes came, for Messalina cast her lustful eyes on 
public a young noble, and did not scruple to parade 

scandal by , -- 1 

marrying her insolent contempt for Claudius by 
forcing Silius to public marriage. It was 
the talk of the whole town, but the Emperor was the last 
to know it. Then Narcissus saw the time was come, 
and, though the rest wavered, he was firm. In concert 
with his confidants he opened the husband’s eyes, and 
worked skilfully upon his fears with dark warnings 


At last she 
defied the 
freedmen 


Claudius . 


A.D. 41-54. 


99 


about plots and revolution; prevented Narcissus tells 

. Claudius, 

any intercourse between them, lest her 

wiles and beauty might prove fatal to his scheme, 

and at last boldly ordered her death, while 

Claudius gave no sign and asked no ques- ^ death^ 

tion. She died in the gardens of Lucullus, 

purchased so lately by the murder of their owner. 

The Emperor soon after made a speech to his guards 
upon the subject, bemoaned his sorry luck in marriage, 
and told them they might use their swords upon him if 
he ever took another wife. But his freedmen ^ , 

Debate among 

knew him better, and were already in debate the freedmen 
upon the choice of a new wife. Callistus, choice of a 

• c 

Pallas, and Narcissus each had his separate new wue - 
scheme in view, and the rival claims broke up the old 
harmony between them. The choice of Pallas fell on 
Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus and A . . 

rr 0 . Agrippina, his 

niece of Claudius. Married at the age of niece, carries 
twelve to Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, a offthe P nze ’ 
man of singular ferocity of temper, she had brought him 
a son who was to be one day famous. She had been 
foully treated by Caligula, her brother, and banished to 
an island till his death. Recalled by Claudius, she learnt 
prudence from the fate of the two Juliae, sister and cousin, 
who fell victims to the jealousy of Messalina. She 
shunned all dangerous rivalry at court, and was content 
to exchange her widowhood for the quiet country life of 
a new husband, one of the richest men in Rome, who, 
dying shortly after, left Domitius his heir, and gave her 
back her freedom when the time was come for her to use 
it. Her first care was to gain a powerful ally at court. 
She found one soon in Pallas, who was as proud and 
ambitious as herself, and she stooped to be the mistress 
of a minion while aspiring to be an Emperor’s wife. 


LafC. 


TOO 


The Earlier Empire . 


A.D. 41 - 54 * 


When Pallas pleaded for her in the council-chamber, 
where the merits of the different claimants were long 
and anxiously discussed, she did not spare to use her 
feminine wiles upon the weak old man. By right of 
kinship she had a ready access to the palace, and could 
lavish her caresses and her blandishments upon him. 
The fort besieged so hotly fell at once, and she was soon 
his wife in all but name. For awhile he seemed to waver 
at the thought of shocking public sentiment by a mar¬ 
riage with his niece; but those scruples were soon swept 
aside by the courtly entreaties of the Senate and the 
clamor of a hired mob. 

Agrippina showed at once that she meant to be regent 
, , , as well as wife. She grasped with a firm 

who showed . . . 

at once her hand the reins of power, still relied upon the 

rule'su- 1 ' t0 veteran statecraft and experience of Pallas, 

preme, and maintaining with him the old intrigue, 

broke up the league of the confederates. The feminine 

rivals whose influence she feared were swept 

swept aside aside by banishment or death. Lollia above 

her rivals, J 

all had crossed her path, and seemed likely 
to carry off the prize. She did not rest till the order was 
given for her death and a centurion des- 
Lollia^ 1,y patched to bring her head. Then—so runs 
the horrid story—to make sure that the 
ghastly face was really that of the beautiful woman she 
had feared and hated, she pushed up the pallid lips to 
feel the teeth, whose form she knew. Then she felt that 
she was safe, and received the title of Augusta from the 
Senate. She had the doings of her court reported in the 
official journals of the day, and gave the law to all the 
had Octavia social world of Rome. Two children of 
betrothed to Claudius, by Messalina, Britannicus and 

her son, ’ J 

Octavia, stood in the path of her ambition. 


A.D. 41-54. 


Claudius. 


101 


Of these the latter was at once betrothed to her young 
son, who was pushed forward rapidly in the career of 
honors, ennobled even with proconsular authority, and 
styled “Prince of the Youth” even in his seventeenth 
year. Meantime the star of the young Britannicus was 
paling, and men noted with suspicion that ^ ^ 
all the trusted guards and servants of the trusted ser- 
boy were one by one removed and their Britannicus 
places filled with strangers. Of the freed- removed, 
men of the palace Narcissus only had not bowed before 
her; with gloomy look and ill-concealed suspense he still 
watched over his patron and his children. His strength 
of character and long experience gave him a hold over 
his master that was still unshaken, and Agrippina did 
not dare to attack him face to face. But his enmity was 
not to be despised. He had sealed the doom of one 
wife—he might yet destroy another. There .... 

0 J J . Afraid of 

was something to alarm her also in the Narcissus 

mood of Claudius, weak dotard as he was, 
for strange words fell from him in his drunken fits, 
coupled with maudlin tenderness for his own children 
and suspicious looks at Nero. There seemed no time, 
therefore, to be lost, and she decided to act promptly. 
She seized the opportunity when Narcissus , , , 

. she had 

was sent away awhile to take the waters for the Claudius 

gout; and while his watchful eye wasoffher, poisoned, 
she calledto her aid the skill of the poisoner Locusta and 
gave Claudius the fatal dose in the savory dish he loved. 

Scarcely was he dead when Seneca wrote for the 
amusement of the Roman circles a withering satire on 
the solemn act by which he was raised to 
the rank of the immortals. In a medley of The satire of 

J beneca on 

homely prose and lofty verse he pictures the thedeifica- 
scene above at the moment of the Emperor’s 


tion of Clau¬ 
dius. 


102 


The Earlier Empire . 


41-54* 


death. Mercury had taken pity on his lingering agony, 
and begged Clotho, one of the three Fates, to cut short 
his span of life. She tells him that she was only waiting 
till he had made an end of giving the full franchise to 
the world. Already by his grace Greeks and Gauls, 
Spaniards and Britons wore the toga, and only a few 
remnants were still left uncared for. But at length she 
lets loose the struggling soul. Then the 

The scene ® 

when Clau- scene shifts to heaven. Jupiter is told that 

fn U heaven! S a stranger had just come hobbling in, a bald 

old man, who wagged his head so much and 
spoke so thick that no one could make out his meaning, 
for it did not sound like Greek or Roman or any sort of 
civilized speech. Hercules, as being used to monsters, 
is deputed to ask him whence he comes, and he does 
this as a Greek in words of Homer. Claudius, glad to 
find scholars up in heaven who may perhaps think well 
of his own works of history, caps the quotation with ano¬ 
ther about a short journey made to Troy, and might have 
imposed on the simple-minded god, if the goddess Fever 
had not come up at that moment from the Roman shrine 
where she was worshipped, and said that he was only 
born at Lugdunum, in the country of the old Gauls, who, 
like himself, had taken the capital by storm. Claudius, 
in his anger, made the usual gesture by which he ordered 
men’s heads off their shoulders, but no one minded him 
any more than if they had been his own proud freed- 
men ; so, remembering that he could not strut and crow 
any more on his own dunghill, he begs Hercules to befriend 
him and to plead his cause in the council- 
The debate chamber of the gods. This he does with 

admission some effect, and when the debate opens 

most of the speakers seem inclined to let 
Claudius come in. But at length Augustus rises, and with 


A.D. 41 - 54 . 


Claudius. 


103 


and passing 
through 


energy denounces his successor, who had turns against 
shed so much noble blood like water, and protest of 
murdered so many of the family of the 
Caesars without a trial or a hearing. His speech and 
vote decide the question, and Claudius is 

j i t t i ^ He is dragged 

dragged away to Hades with a noose about away to 
his throat like the victims of his cruelty. As Hades ' 
he passes on his way through Rome his funeral dirge is 
being sung, and he hears the snatches of it 
which mentioned in his praise that no one 

, , . . . Rome, hears 

ever was so speedy on the seat of judgment, the dirges on 

or could decide so easily after hearing one himsclf ‘ 

side only, or sometimes neither; and that pleaders and 

gamblers would keenly feel the loss of a monarch who 

had loved so much the law, court, and the dice-box. 

The spirits in Hades raise a shout of triumph when they 

hear that he is near, and all whom he had sent before 

him throng about him as he enters. There they stand, 

the intimates, the kinsmen he had doomed to ^ 

L he spirits 

death, the senators, the knights, and less ofhis victims 
honored names as countless as the sand on triumph 
the seashore, and silently confront the round him, 
fallen tyrant. But Claudius, seeing all the well-known 
faces, forgetting, as he often did in life, or even ignorant 
of the causes of their death, said, “ Why, here are all 
friends! How ever came you hither?” , , 

J and drag him 

Then they curse him to his face and drag before the 

him to the chair of yEacus, the judge, who J C efve Ws fit- 

condemns him unheard, to the surprise of tlng doom ‘ 
all, save the criminal himself. After some thought a 
fitting penalty was found. Claudius was doomed to play 
for all eternity with a dice-box that had no bottom. 


io 4 


The Earlier Empire . 


a.d. 54-68. 


CHAPTER V. 

NERO.—A.D. 54-68. 

We read that when Domitius was told that he had a son, 
he said that any child of his by Agrippina must prove 
an odious and baneful creature. The mother 
lTfeof e N y ro asked her brother Caius, the Emperor, to 
give the child a name, but he pointed to 
Claudius, his laughing-stock, and said that the little one 
should bear his name, though the mother angrily pro¬ 
tested at the omen. Soon afterwards he lost his parent’s 
care by death and banishment, and was brought up at 
the house of his aunt Lepida, entrusted to the charge of 
a dancing-master and a barber, till brighter times came 
back with the return of his mother from her place of 
exile. He rose with Agrippina’s rise to power, and be¬ 
came the central object of her ambitious hopes ; for, the 
sister of one emperor and wife of another, she was de- 
„ , , termined to be the mother of a third. At 

Brought for- 

ward by his the age of ten she had him made the adopted 
adopted by son of Claudius, when he took the name of 
Claudius, Nero. The choice of Seneca to be his tutor 
met with the approval of men of worth and culture ; the 
appointment of Burrhus to be the sole praefect of the 
praetorian guard secured the support of the armed force 
of Rome. His betrothal to Octavia strengthened his 
claims still further, and stirred the jealousy of the young 
Britannicus and the grave fears of the old servants like 
Narcissus. The issue showed how well-founded were 
those fears. As soon as the death of Claudius was made 


A.D. 54-68. 


Nero . 


105 


known, Nero, hurrying to the camp of his advisers, 
spoke the soldiers fairly, and making ample promises of 
largess, was saluted Emperor by acclama- , 

. . . _ . . he was saluted 

tion. i he claims ot liritanmcus were set as Emperor by 

aside, and no voice was raised even in the the soldlers ’ 

Senate in his favor. 

At first the strong will of Agrippina seemed to give 
the tone to the new government. Votes were passed in 
her honor by the Senate; the watchword given to the 
soldiers was, “ The best of mothers.” To 
satisfy her resentment or to calm her fears Agrip^na^ 
Narcissus had to die. That she might take ^ rst 

tv O V bl 11 ^ 

her part in all concerns of the State the 
Senate was called to the palace to debate, where behind 
a curtain she could hear and not be seen. But the two 
chief advisers of the prince, though they owed their 
places to her favor, had no mind to be the tools of a bold 
bad woman, behind whom they could still see the form 
of the haughty minion Pallas. 

The praefect of the praetorians, Afranius Burrhus, who 
wielded the armed force of the new government, was a 
man of grave and almost austere character, , „ , 

0 # but Burrhus, 

whose name had long stood high at Rome the praefect 

for soldierly discipline and honor. His ofthe s uarcl > 

merits had given him a claim to his high rank, and he 

would not stoop to courtier-like compliance. He used 

his weighty influence for good, though he had at times to 

stand by and witness evil which he was powerless to 

check. 

L. Annaeus Seneca represented the moral force of the 
privy council, though he had the more yielding and com¬ 
pliant temper of the two. Sprung from a and Seneca, 
rich family of Corduba, in Spain, his {Jj^^Nero, 
wealth and good connections and brilliant 


io6 


The Earlier Empire. a.d. 54 - 68 . 


took the 
reins cut of 
her hands, 


powers of rhetoric had made him popular in early life 
with the highest circles of the capital, till he gained to 
his cost the favor of the Emperor’s sister. Banished by 
the influence of Messalina, he had turned to philosophy 
for comfort, and won high repute among the serious 
world of Rome by the earnestness and fervor of his let¬ 
ters. Few stood higher among the moral writers of the 
day, no one seemed fitter by experience and natural tastes 
to be director of the conscience of the young nobility. 
With rare harmony, though different methods, the 
two advisers used their influence to sway the 
young Emperor’s mind and to check the 
overweening pride of Agrippina. They 
took the reins of power from her hand and reassured the 
public mind, which had been unnerved by the despotic 
venal government of late years, with its tyrant menials 
, , ,. and closest trials. They restored to the 

and ruled in # 

his name Senate some portion of its old authority and 
andpnf- mty chose the public servants wisely. For five 
dence, years the world was ruled with dignity and 

order, for the young Emperor reigned in name, but did 
not govern, and the acts that passed for his were grave 
and prudent, while the very words even were put into 
his mouth for state occasions. When the Senate sent a 
vote of thanks he bade them keep their gratitude till he 
deserved it; and when he had to sign a death-warrant, 
he said that he wished he was not scholar enough to 
write his name. The pretty phrases were repeated ; men 
did not stay to ask if they were Seneca’s or Nero’s, but 
hoped that they might prove the key-note of the new 
reign. But the two ministers meantime had cause for 

though they grave misgivings, for they had long studied 
saw cause for their young charge with watchful eyes, 
grave misgivings. an( j had seen with regret how little they 


A.D. 54-68. 


Nero. 


107 


could do to mould his character as they could wish. 
Burrhus had failed to teach him in the camp any 
of the virtues of a soldier ; all the lessons of temperance, 
hardihood, and patience left no traces in his mind 
Seneca had been warned, we read, by Agrippina that the 
quibbles of philosophy would be too mean for his young 
pupil. He had little taste himself for the orators of the 
Republic, and did not care to point to them for lessons 
of manly dignity and freedom. But he did his best to 
teach him wisdom, spoke to him earnestly of duty, wrote 
for nim moral treatises, full of thought and 
epigram, on themes like clemency and thei^effort 
anger, but could not drop the language of to form his 
the court, and hinted in his very warnings 
that the prince was raised above the law—was almost a 
god to make and to destroy. 

Nero even from his youth had turned of choice to other 
teachers. He had little taste for the old Roman drill 
in arms and law and oratory, and was, it was noted, the 
first of the emperors who had his speeches 

. - - . . r .. . he showed a 

written for him, from lack of readiness in passion for 

public business. But he had a real passion the fine arts 

for the arts of Greece, for music, poetry, and acting ; had 

the first masters of the age to train him, studied with 

them far into the night, and soon began to pride himself 

upon the inspiration of the Muses. To gain time for 

such pursuits he was well content to leave the business 

of State to graver heads, and to take his part only in the 

pageant. He had other pleasures of a meaner stamp. 

Soon it was the talk of Rome that the young Emperor 

stole out in disguise at night, went to low 

haunts or roved about the streets with noisy and for low 

roysterers like himself, broke into taverns dissipation. 

and assaulted quiet citizens, and showed 


The Earlier E?npire. 


108 


A.D. 54-68. 


His impa¬ 
tience of his 
mother’s re¬ 
straint, en¬ 
couraged by 
his advisers, 


even in his mirth the signs of latent wantonness and 
cruelty. 

His boon companions were not slow to foster the pride 
and insolence of rank, to bid him use the power he 
had, and free himself without delay from petticoat rule 
and the leading-strings of greybeards. Their counsels 
fell on willing ears. He had long been weary of his 
mother. She had ruled him as a boy by fear rather than 
by love, and now she could not stoop willingly to a 
lower place. She wanted to be regent still, 
and hoped pei haps to see her son content to 
sing and act and court the Muses, while she 
governed in his name. But he had listened 
gladly to ministers who schooled him to 
curb her ambition and assert himself. He looked on 
calmly while they checked her control over the Senate, 
put aside her chief adviser, Pallas, annulled the despotic 
acts of the last reign, and took the affairs of state out of 
her hands. She was not the woman to submit without a 
struggle. There were stormy scenes sometimes between 
them, and then again she tried with a woman’s blandish¬ 
ments to recover the ground that she had lost She talked 
of the wrongs of the young Britannicus, and spoke of 
stirring the legions in his favor. As Nero’s love for 
Octavia cooled she took to her home the injured wife 
and made public parade of sympathy and pity. When it 
was too late, she changed her course of action, condoned 
and offered even to disguise the amorous license on which 
she had frowned before so sternly, and tried in vain to 
win his love with a studied tenderness that would refuse 
him nothing. 

Nero’s chief ministers had put him on his guard against 
her and roused his jealousy and fear. They had now 
to stand by and see the struggle take its course, 


A.D. 54-68. 


Nero. 


109 

and watch the outcome with a growing hor- was carried by 
. 0 him to lengths 

ror. Britanmcus, of whose name such 1m- they had not 

pudent use was made, was stricken at din- dreamt of ' 

ner with a sudden fit and taken out to die, as all men 

thought, by poison. His poor sister hid her 

• r • • , , t Treatment of 

grief in silence, but she was soon to be di- Britannicus 

vorced Agrippina was first stripped of all and Octavia. 
her guard of honor and forced to leave her house upon 
the Palatine; false informers were let loose upon her and 
wanton insolence encouraged. It was mur¬ 
mured that the dread Locusta was at work ^potson ™ 13 * 3 
brewing her poisonous drugs, and that three ^f["d 1>ina 
times they tried in vain to poison her. One 
day it was found that the canopy above her bed was so 
arranged that the ropes must soon give way, and the 
whole crush her as she lay in sleep. At length Nero 
could wait no longer, and he found a willing tool in 
Anicetus, the admiral of his fleet, and between them a 
dark plot was hatched. It was holiday-time, and Nero 
was taking the baths at Baiae. Suddenly he wrote a 
letter to his mother full of sorrow at the past estrange¬ 
ment and of hopes that they might live on 
better terms if she would only come and see 
him as of old. She came at once, and found 
a hearty welcome; was pressed to stay on 
one plea or another till at last night was come. Nero 
conducted her to a barge of state and left her with tender 
words and fond embraces. She was not far upon her 
homeward way across the bay, when at a signal given, 
the deck fell crashing in and the barge rolled over on its 
side ; and the crew, far from coming to the rescue, struck 
with their oars at Agrippina and her women as they 
struggled in the water. But she was quiet and kept afloat 
awhile, till a boat picked her up and carried her to her 

I 


The dark 
scheme to 
drown her in 
the Bay of 
Naples. 


no 


The Earlier Empire. a.d. 54-68. 


home, to brood over the infamous design. At last she 
sent a messenger to tell her son that she was 
safe though wounded. Nero, baffled in his 
murderous hopes and haunted by fears of vengeance, 
was for awhile irresolute. He even called into counsel 
Seneca and Burrhus, and told them of his plot and of its 
failure. They would have no hand in her death, though 
they had no hope, perhaps no wish to save her. While 
„ „ ,, they talk Anicetus acts. He hastens with an 

followed by ' . . 

her murder. officer or two to Agrippina s house, makes 
his way through the startled crowd about the 
shore, and finds her in her bed-room all alone. There, 
while she eyes them fiercely and bids them strike the 
womb that bore the monster, they shower their blows 
upon her and leave her lifeless body gashed with 
wounds. 

The ministers of Nero must share the infamy of this 
unnatural deed. They had already tarnished their good 
name by mean compliance. To save the 
power that was slipping from their grasp 
they had closed their eyes to Nero’s vices: 
they had tried even to cloak his youthful 
passion for a freedwoman by a paltry subter¬ 
fuge ; they had held their peace when Britannicus was 
poisoned, and stooped even to share the bounties that 
were showered at the time upon the courtiers ; and now 
they sunk so low in good men’s eyes as to defend the 
deed from the thought of which even Nero at first shrunk 


Burrhus and 
Seneca, to 
their dis¬ 
grace, de- 
ended the 
deed. 


aghast. Burrhus, we read, sent officers of the praetorian 
guard to announce the soldiers’ joy that their sovereign 
was safe for ever from his mother’s plots. Seneca’s 
hand drew up the despatches to the Senate in which the 
murdered woman was charged with treasonable designs 
against the Emperor’s life, and all the worst horrors of 


A.D. 54-68. 


Nero. 


111 


the days of Claudius were raked up to cover her memory 
with shame. The Senate, too, was worthy of its prince, 
and voted solemn thanksgivings for his 

c \ i and public 

satety, while Thrasea alone protested by his opinion con- 
silence, and walked out of the house at last doneu ll * 
when he could brook their flattery no longer. Even 
distant cities found an excuse for mean servility. One 
deputation came to beg Nero in the name of the pro¬ 
vincials to bear his heavy grief with patience. 

The Emperor came back to Rome to find the city 
decked out in festive guise to greet him like a con¬ 
quering hero. So, rid at length of all fear of N 
rivalry or moral restraints from his advisers, himself up to 
he gave free vent to his desires. Music and hls plt - asurcs » 
song, the circus and the theatre had been the passion 
of his childhood; they were now to be the chief object 
of his life. He shared the tastes of the populace of Rome, 
and catered for them with imperial grandeur. No cost 
or care was spared to make the spectacles imposing and 
worthy of the master of the world. The old national 
prejudice had looked on the actor’s trade as , 

A J # drove free- 

almost infamous for freeborn Romans ; but bom Romans 
Nero drove upon the stage citizens of rank, on 1 e slase> 
knights and senators of ancient lineage, and made them 
play and act and dance before the people. The his¬ 
torian Dion Cassius rises from his sober prose almost to 
eloquence when he describes the descendants of the 
conquered races pointing the finger at the sons of the 
great families from which their victors sprung; the 
Greeks asking with surprise and scorn if that was indeed 
Mummius, the Spaniards marveling to see a Scipio, the 
Macedonians an yEmilius before them. At last, as if it 
were to cover their disgrace—or, as many thought, 
to share it—Nero appeared himself in public, and 


11 2 


The Earlier Empire . a.d. 54 - 68 . 


and at last sang and played and acted for the prize, and 

appeared on 

it himself, sought the plaudits of the crowd. He did not 
take it up as the mere pastime of an idle day, 
but practised and studied in real earnest, showed feverish 
jealousy of rival actors, and humbly bowed before the 
judges, as if the contest was a real one. No one might 
leave the theatre while he played; Vespasian 

taking to it , , , . • i • 

in real was seen to nod, and sunk at once in his 

good graces. Five thousand sturdy youths 
were trained to sit in companies among the audience 
and give the signal for applause. Not content with such 
display at Rome, he starred it even in the provinces. 
The Greeks were the great connoisseurs of all the fine 
arts; in their towns were glorious prizes to be won, and 
Greece alone was worthy of his voice and talents. 
Greece was worthy also of her ruler; nowhere was 
adulation more refined, nowhere did men flatter with 
more subtle tact the pride and vanity of the artist-prince. 

We cannot doubt that Nero had a genuine love of 
art. It may seem as if he lived to justify the modern 
XT . , fancy that art has a sphere and canons of its 
real love of own, and may be quite divorced from moral 

art * 

laws. But indeed the art of Nero and his 
times was bad, and that because it was not moral. It 
set at naught the eternal laws of truth and simplicity, 
of temperance and order. In poetry and 
was bad^be- music it was full of conceits and affecta- 
immorai WaS tions, straining after the fantastic. In plastic 
art size was thought of more than beauty 
of proportion, and men aimed at the vast and grandiose 
in enormous theatres and colossal statues. In place of 
the delicate refinement of Greek taste its drama sought 
for coarse material effects; it did not try by flight of 
fancy to stir the nobler feelings of the heart, but relied 


A.D. 54-68. 


Nero. 


IT 3 

on sensuous pageantry and carnal horrors to goad and 
sate the morbid taste for what was coarse, ferocious, 
and obscene. 

Nero’s life as Emperor was one long series of stage 
effects, of which the leading feature was a feverish ex¬ 
travagance. His return from the art-tour in 

• Nero’s cx — 

Greece outdid all the triumphal processions travagant 
of the past. Thousands of carriages were display, 
needed for his baggage; his sumpter mules were shod 
with silver; and all the towns he passed upon his way 
received him through a breach made in their walls, for 
such he heard was the “ sign of honor ” with which their 
citizens were wont to welcome the Olympian victors of 
old days. The public works which he designed were 
more to feed his pride than serve the public. He 
wanted, like another Xerxes, to cut a canal through the 
Corinthian isthmus; thought of making vast lakes to 
be supplied from the hot springs of Baise, and schemed 
great works by which the sea might be brought almost 
to the walls of Rome. But it was only by his buildings 
that he left enduring traces, and to this the especially in 
great disaster of his times gave an unlooked building ’ 
for impulse. Some little shops in the low grounds near 
the Circus took fire by chance. The flames 
spread fast through the narrow streets and grea^fire'of 
crowded alleys of the quarter, and soon £° s j^,f ave 
began to climb up the higher ground to the petus. 

r A 1 A.D. 64. 

statelier houses of the wealthy. Almost a 
week the fire was burning, and of the fourteen wards of 
the city only four escaped unharmed. Nero was at An- 
tium when the startling news arrived, and he reached 
Rome too late to save his palace. He threw his gardens 
open to the homeless poor, lowered at once the price of 
corn, and had booths raised in haste to shelter them. 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 54-68. 


114 


He did not lack sympathy for the masses of the city, 
whose tastes he shared and catered for. And yet the 
story spread that the horrors of the blazing 
rmiwreas 86 city caught his excited fancy, that he saw 
to tus con- i n jt a scene worthy of an Emperor to act in, 
and sung the story of the fall of Troy among 
the crashing ruins and the fury of the flames. Even 
wilder fancies spread among the people: men whispered 
that his servants had been seen with lighted 
suspicions torches in their hands as they were hurrying 
to and fro to spread the fire. For Nero had 
been heard to wish that the old Rome of crooked streets 
and crowded lanes might be now swept clean away, that 
he might rebuild it on a scale of royal grandeur. Cer¬ 
tainly he claimed for himself the lion’s share of the 
space that the flames had cleared. 

The palace to which the Palatine hill had given a name 
now took a wider range and spread to the Esquiline, 
including in its vast circuit long lines of 
porticoes, lakes, woods, and parks; while 
the buildings were so lavishly adorned with 
every art as to deserve the name of the 
“Golden House” which the people’s fancy 
gave to them. In its vestibule stood the colossal figure 
of the Emperor, one hundred and twenty feet in height, 
which afterwards gave its name to the Colosseum. From 
it stretched porticoes a mile in length, supported on triple 
ranges of marble pillars, leading to the lake, round 
which was built a mimic town, opening out into parks 
stocked with wild animals of every sort. The halls were 
lined with gold and precious stones ; the banqueting- 
rooms were fitted with revolving roofs of ivory, per¬ 
forated to scatter flowers and perfumes on the guests, 
while shifting tables seemed to vanish of themselves and 


He had the 
“ Golden 
House” built 
for him on the 
most splendid 
scale. 


A.D. 54-68. 


Nero. 


IJ 5 

re-appear charged with richest viands. There were baths 
too to suit all tastes, some supplied from the waters of 
the sea, and some filled with sulphurous streams that 
had their sources miles away. 

Thousands of the choicest works of art of Greece and 
Asia had been destroyed, but their place was taken by 
the paintings and the statues brought from 
every quarter of the empire. Nero sent ^ifh^heart^ 
special agents to ransack the cities for art- of 

treasures, and many a town among the isles 
of Greece mourned in after days the visit that had des¬ 
poiled it of some priceless treasure. 

When all was done and the Emperor surveyed the 
work, even he was satisfied, and he cried, “ Now at least 
I feel that I am lodged as a man should be.” It was in 
halls like these that the privileged few gathered round 
their lord when he returned from the grave business of 
the circus and the stage to indulge in the pleasures of 
the table. Otho, the profligate dandy, who had been 
complaisant enough to lend his wife to Nero ; 

1 0 Its most privi- 

Tigellinus, praefect of the guards, ready to leged in¬ 
pander to his master’s worst caprices ; Vati- matcs * 
nius, the hunchback, who had left his cobbler’s bench 
and pushed his fortunes in the palace by his scurrilous 
jests and reckless attacks on honest men ; Sporus, the 
poor eunuch, and Pythagoras, the freedman, both de¬ 
graded by the mockery of marriage with the wanton 
prince—these and many another whose names have not 
been gibbeted in history left their memories of infamy in 
that “ House of Gold.” 

The mood of the citizens meanwhile was dark and 
lowering as they brooded over their disas- To turn susp5 _ 
ters, and Nero looked to find some victims C 1 ? V - from him * 

... self, 

to fill their thoughts or turn their suspicion 


The Ea?'lier Empire. 


A.D. 54-68. 


116 


from himself. The Christians were the scapegoats chosen. 

Confused in the popular fancy with the Jews, 

Christian ^ 6 his whose bigotry and turbulence had made 

victims and his th em hated, looked upon askance by Roman 
scapegoats, 1 J 

rulers as members of secret clubs and pos¬ 
sible conspirators, disliked probably by those who knew 
them best for their unsocial habits or their tirades against 
the fashions of the times, the Christians were sacrificed 
alike to policy and hatred. They deserved their fate, 
says Tacitus, not, indeed, because they were guilty of the 
fire, but from their hatred of mankind. There was a 
refinement of cruelty in their doom. Some were covered 
with the skins of beasts, and fierce dogs were let loose 
to worry them. Others were tied to stakes and smeared 
with tar, and then at nightfall, one after 
mlmtofcrudty another, they were set on fire, that their 
them rtUnng burning bodies might light up Nero’s gar¬ 
dens, while the crowds made merry with 
good cheer, and the Emperor looked curiously on as at 
the play. No wonder that in the pages even of the hea¬ 
then writers we hear something like a cry of horror, and 
that in the Christian literature we may trace the lurid 
colors of such scenes in the figures of Antichrist and in 
the visions of the coming judgment. 

But Nero did not often waste his thought and inge¬ 
nuity on such poor prey as the artizans and freedmen 
of the Christian Churches. His victims were commonly 
of higher rank, and the nearer to him the 
nearer they seemed to death. His aunt 
followed his mother to the grave, and her 
tender words to him as she lay upon her 
death-bed were rewarded by a message to 
her doctor to be prompt and close her pains. 
Octavia was soon divorced and killed, on a 


Buthis victims 
were common¬ 
ly of higher 
rank. 

His aunt. 

His wife, 
Octavia, 


A.D. 54-68. 


Nero. 


117 

charge of faithlessness, which was so carelessly con¬ 
trived as to shock men by its very wantonness of power. 
Poppaea, her successor, was dearly loved, and yet he 
killed her in a fit of passion with a hasty 
kick. He soon wearied of the grave face of Poppaea > 
Burrhus, who read in his coolness the omen Burrhus 
of a speedy death. Before long he grew sick 
and felt that he was poisoned. He pointed to the blood 
that he spat up as the signs of princely gratitude, would 
not see Nero when he called to ask him how he felt, 
but said only, “ Well,” and turned his face away and died. 
Seneca was longer spared, but he too felt that his time 
must come. He held himself aloof from court, tried to 
give up all his wealth and honors, to live 
austerely, and by the lessons of philosophy to foTa tfme Pared 
make himself strong and self-contained, or 
to be director of the consciences of those who needed 
help and comfort. 

But with a prince like Nero even students were not 
safe, and philosophy itself was dangerous ground. The 
noblest minds at Rome were at this time mainly Stoics, 
and among the long line of Nero’s victims there were 
many who were in some sense martyrs to 

J . ' Philosophers 

the Stoic creed. They were not republicans, were looked on 
though they have sometimes passed for such Wlt mistrust - 
in later history. They were not disloyal, though they 
were looked at with disfavor. They were ready to serve 
the ruling powers either in the Senate or the camp; there 
was a largeness even in their social views as citizens of 
the world that would seem to fit them markedly for 
carrying out the levelling spirit of the imperial policy. 
Nevertheless they were regarded with jealousy and mis¬ 
trust ; nor is the reason far to seek. Stoicism in passing 
from the schools of Greece had ceased 


Stoicism, 


118 


7 he Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 54-68. 


to be an abstract theory, with interest only for the 
curious mind that loved the subtleties of paradox. It 
was a standard of duty for the Romans, and a creed to 
live and die for. The resolute spirit and the hard out¬ 
lines of its doctrines had a fascination for the higher 
type of Roman mind. To live up to the ideal of a noble 
life, in which reason should rule and virtue be its own 
reward ; to care very much for a good conscience, for 
personal dignity and freedom, and to think slightingly 
of short-lived goods over which the will has no control 
—here was a rule that was not without a certain grandeur, 
however wanting it might be at times in tenderness and 
sympathy.. But such high teaching was distasteful to 
the sensualist and tyrant; its tone rebuked his follies 
and his vices. It set up a higher standard 
distasteful to than the will of Caesar, and was too marked 
the prince, a con t ras t to the servile flattery of the times. 
It was not the spiritual Quixotism of a few, which might 
be safely disregarded, but men flocked to it on every 
side for lessons of comfort and of hardihood in evil days. 
Weak women turned to it to give them strength, as Arria, 
in the days of Claudius, had shown her husband how to 
die, when she handed him the dagger that 
rapidly through had pierced her with the words, “ See, 
society. Paetus, it does not hurt.” Some spread the 

doctrines with a sort of apostolic fervor, and may well 
have said at times uncourtly things of the vices in high 
places, like the Puritan preachers of our own land. Some 
again, mistook bluntness of speech for love of truth, like 
Cornutus, who, when some one pressed Nero to write a 
work in some four hundred books, remarked that “ no 
one then would read them ; it was true Crysippus wrote 
as many, but they were of some use to mankind.” 
Others, influencing the world of fashion in quiet inter- 


A.D. 54-68. 


Nero . 


119 

course and friendly letters, showed the young how to 
live in times of danger; or when the fatal message came 
stood by and calmed the pains of death, like the father- 
confessors of the Church. 

Of the great Stoics of that time there was no more 
commanding figure than that of Thrasea Psetus. He had 
none of the hard austerity of a Cato nor the 
one-sided vehemence of asocial reformer; Jild fat^of^ 
he was fond even of the play, and mixed Thrasea 
gaily in the social circles of the city ; would 
not blame even vice severely, for fear of losing sight of 
charity to men. In the Senate he was discreet and calm, 
even when he disliked what was done ; tempered his 
blame with words of praise, spoke of Nero as an eminent 
prince, and voted commonly with his colleagues, though 
he did not stoop to mean compliance. Sometimes, in¬ 
deed, he protested by his silence, as when he rose and 
left the Senate-house rather than hear the apology of 
Nero for the murder of his mother, and when he de¬ 
clined to come and join the vote for the apotheosis of 
Poppsea. At last, when the evils seemed too strong for 
cure, he would take no part in public actions. For the 
last three years of his life he would not sit in his place 
among the senators, nor take the yearly vow of loyalty, 
nor offer prayer or sacrifice for Caesar. The rebuke of 
his silence was a marked one, for the world, watching 
his bearing, turned even to the official journals to see 
what Thrasea had not done, and to put their construc¬ 
tion on his absence. The calm dignity of his demeanor 
seems to have awed even Nero for a while, but at last 
the Emperor wearied of his quiet protest. The fatal or¬ 
der found him in his garden, surrounded by a circle of 
his kinsmen and choice spirits, with whom he tranquilly 
conversed upon high themes. Like another Socrates he 


The Earlier Empire. 


120 


A.D. 54-68. 


heard his doom with cheerfulness, and passed awaj 
without a bitter word. 

Seneca, too, found consolation but not safety in the 
Stoic doctrines. He had long retired from the active 
Of Seneca world, and shunned the Emperor’s jealous 
(a. d. 65), eye. He } ia( } sought in philosophy the les¬ 
sons of a lofty self-denial, and was spending the last 
years of his life in studying how to die. The rash con¬ 
spiracy of a few of his acquaintance, in which he took 
no part himself, was the excuse, though not the motive, 
for his murder. The sentence found him with his young 
wife and intimates, prepared for but not courting death. 
Denied the pleasure of leaving them by will the last 
tokens of affection, he told his friends that he could be¬ 
queath them only the pattern of an honest life, and 
gently reproved the weakness of their grief. His veins 
were opened ; but he talked on still while life was slow¬ 
ly ebbing, and was calm through all the agony of linger¬ 
ing death. 

Corbulo, the greatest soldier of his day, whose charac¬ 
ter was cast in an antique mould, and was true to the 
traditions of the camp, had also to experi¬ 
ence the ingratitude of princes. He had 
led his troops to victory in the North, had 
baffled the Parthian force and guile, and saved a Roman 
army from disaster ; he had been so loyal to his Empe¬ 
ror in the face of strong temptation as to cause the Ar¬ 
menian Tiridates to say in irony to Nero that he was 
lucky in having such a docile slave. Suddenly he was 
recalled with flattering words. The death warrant met 
him on his way, and he fell upon his sword, saying only, 
“ I deserved it.” So unlooked for was the deed that 
men could only say that Nero was ashamed to meet his 
eye while busied in pursuits so unworthy of a monarch. 


and of 
Corbulo. 
(a. d. 67). 


A. D. 54-68. 


Nero. 


121 


Other victims, 


A crowd of other victims pass before us on the scene. 
The least distinguished were driven forth from Rome to 
people lonely islands, while the chiefs 
proved to the world that they had learned 
from the Stoic creed the secret how to live nobly and die 
grandly. Women too were not wanting in 

. . “ women 

heroic courage. Paulina, the young wife of among the 
Seneca, tried to go with him to the grave. number » 
Others were glad to save their self-respect by death. Of 
these some fell as victims to the jealousy of Caesar; 
their eminence, their virtues, and historic 

suffered lor 

names made them dangerous rivals. Some different 
found their wealth a fatal burden when the 
Emperor’s wild extravagance had drained his coffers 
and fresh funds were needed for his lavish outlay. More 
frequently they died to expiate a moral protest, which 
was often silent, but not the less expressive. The abso¬ 
lute ruler was provoked by men who would not crouch 
or bend. Pie felt instinctively that they abhorred him, 
and fancied that he saw even in the look of Thrasea 
something of the sour pedagogue’s frown. Their fate 
marked the crisis of the struggle between high thought 
and ignoble acting. 

Lucan too at this time, by a less honorable death, 
closed a short life of poetic fame. He had risen to early 
eminence in the social circles of the capital, 
stood high in favor at the court, where the 
passion for the fine arts was in vogue, and, as the nephew 
of Seneca, he shared the studies and for a time the con¬ 
fidence of Nero. But the sunshine of princely favor 
was soon clouded ; he was coldly welcomed in the 
palace, and then forbidden to recite in pub- fell into dis _ 
lie. What was the reason of the change grace at court, 
we cannot say with certainty. Perhaps he was too bold 


Lucan 


122 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 54-68. 


in the choice of his great subject. The civil wars of the 
Republic had seemingly a fascination for the literary 
genius of this time, and many a pen was set to work 
and many a fancy fired by the story of the men who 
fought and died in the name of liberty or for the right 
to misgovern half the world. There was, of course, a 
danger in such themes. Julius Caesar had written an 
Anti-Cato, to attack a popular ideal, and later rulers 
might be tempted to meet his eulogists with the sword 
rather than the pen. Historians had already suffered 
for their ill-timed praises of the great republicans ; and 
Claudius had been warned not to meddle with so perilous 

from his choice a theme. Lucan, therefore, may well have 
of subject given offence to the instinctive jealousy of 

a despot, though he was not sparing of his flattering 
words, as when he bids him take a central place among 
the heavenly constellations, for fear of disturbing the 
equilibrium of the world ; and in the opening books, at 
least, which alone had seen the light, he was wary and 
cautious in his tone. Or it may be he of¬ 
fended Nero’s canons of poetic style, for he 
cast aside the old tradition and boldly dispensed with the 
dreamland of fable and all the machinery of the mar¬ 
vellous and superhuman. He aspired to set history to 
heroic verse, but claimed no knowledge of the world 
unseen. Or, as it is more likely still, his fame gave um¬ 
brage to his master, who was himself a 
would-be poet, and could not bear to 
have a rival. Whatever may have been the 
cause of his disgrace, Lucan could not patiently submit 
to be thus silenced. His vanity needed the plaudits of 

In his resent- crowc ^i genius perhaps seemed 

ment cramped and chilled for the want of kindly 

sympathy. For the habit of public readings, then so 


or of style, 


or excited the 
jea'ousy 
of Nero. 


a.d. 54-68. 


Nero. 


123 


common, took to some extent the place of the journals 
and reviews of modern times, and brought an author 
into immediate relation with the cultivated world for 
whom he wrote. When this pleasure was denied him 
Lucan first distilled into his poem some of the bitterness 
of his wounded pride, and then joined a 
band of resolute men who were conspiring ^conspiracy m 
to strike down the monarch of whom they 
were long weary and to set up a noble Piso in his place. 
The plot came to an untimely end, and most of those 
who joined it lost their lives. Lucan lost not his life 
only, but his honor, for when his fears were worked 
upon he gave evidence against his friends, and even de¬ 
nounced his mother as an accomplice in the 
plot. We can have little pity when we read SSfand honor, 
that he could not save his life even by such 
means, nor can we feel interest in the affected calmness 
with which, in his last moments, he recited from his 
poem an account of death-agonies somewhat like his 
own. 

There died at the same time the chief professor of a 
very different creed from that of the great Stoics. Pe- 
tronius had given a lifetime to the study of 
the refinements of luxurious ease : his wit 
and taste and ingenuity had made him the 
oracle of Roman fashion, or the “arbiter,” as he was 
called, of elegance. Nothing new could pass current in 
the gay world of the city till it had the stamp of his ap¬ 
proval. He was the probable author of a , , ,, 

r m 1 the-probable 

satire which curiously reflects the tone of author of a 
social thought around him, its self-contempt, satiric novel, 
its mocking insight, and its shameless im¬ 
morality. The work is a strange medley. It contains 
among other things a specimen of a heroic poem on the 


Petronius 

Arbiter, 


124 


The Earlier Empire. 


a. d. 54-63. 


same theme as that of Lucan’s, full of the mythological 
machinery which the bolder poet had eschewed, and 
intended, therefore, possibly as a protest against Lucan’s 
revolutionary canons. It gives us also, in the supper 
of Trimalchio, a curious picture of the tasteless extrava¬ 
gance and vulgar ostentation of the wealthy upstarts of 
the times, such as might please the fastidious pride of 
the nobles in Roman circles. It might amuse them 
also, sated as they were with fashionable gossip, to hear 
the common people talk, and to be led in fancy into 
the disreputable haunts through which the hero of the 
piece is made to wander in the course of strange adven¬ 
tures, like a “Gil Bias” of old romance. The writer, 
if he really was Petronius, roused at last a jealousy which 
caused his ruin ; for the vile favorite, Tigellinus, who 
had gained the ear of Nero, and aspired to 
be the master of ceremonies at the palace, 
could not bear a rival near him. He trumped 
up a false charge against him, worked upon 
his master’s fears which had been excited 
lately by the widespread conspiracy of Piso, and had an 
order sent to him to keep away from court. Petronius 
took the message for his death-warrant, and 
from b court, ed calmly prepared to meet his end. He set 
his house in order, gave instructions to re¬ 
ward some and punish others of his slaves, wrote out his 
will, and composed a stinging satire upon the Emperor’s 
foul excesses which he sealed and sent to him before he 
died. It was noted that at last no philosopher stood at 
his bedside to whisper words of comfort or 
dwell on hopes of immortality, but that true, 
even in death, to his ignoble, godless creed, 
he amused himself as the streams of life 
were ebbing with frivolous epigrams and wanton verses. 


excited the 
jealousy of 
Tigellinus as 
a leader of 
the fashions. 


and died 
with frivo¬ 
lous indiffer 
ence. 


A.D. 54-68. 


I2 5 


Nero. 

Besides the portents of cruelty and lust, confined 
mainly to the walls of Rome, other disasters were not 
wanting to leave their gloomy traces on the annals of 
the times. A hasty rising of the British tribes under 
Queen Boadicea was followed by the sack 
of two great Roman colonies, Camalodunum BritaiT'and * 11 
and Londinium, and the loss of seventy j»^ at loss of 
thousand men. In Armenia a general’s in¬ 
capacity had brought dishonor on the legions and nearly 
caused the loss of Syria. Italy had been 
visited with hurricane and plague; and gr e d at°disas- 
the volcanic forces that had been long pent t f rs of the 
up beneath Vesuvius gave some token of 
their power by rocking the ground on which Pompeii 
stood and laying almost all its buildings low. 

It was the monarch’s turn at length to suffer some of 
the agony now felt around him; and after fourteen 
years he fell because the world seemed weary of him, 
and none raised a hand in his defence. The The revo i t 0 f 
signal of revolt was given first in Gaul, ^mdex, in 
where Vindex, a chieftain of a powerful clan 
of Aquitania, roused the slumbering discontent into a 
flame by describing, as an eye-witness, the infamy of 
Nero’s rule and the ends to which the heavy taxes were 
applied. He told them of Sporus carried as a. bride in 
Nero’s litter, and submitting publicly to his caresses ; of 
Tigellinus lording it at Rome, and making havoc among 
noble lives, while his master was fiddling in all the thea¬ 
tres of Greece ; of Poppsea Sabina, first his mistress then 
his wife, who had her mules shod with shoes of gold, 
and five hundred asses daily milked to fill her bath ; of 
the countless millions wrung from toiling subjects and 
squandered on a vile favorite or a passing fancy. 
Waiving all hopes of personal ambition, he urged Galba, 

K 


126 


The Earlier Empire. a.D. 54 - 68 . 


the governor of Spain, to lead the movement, and came 
to terms with Verginius Rufus, who was marching from 
Germany against him. He killed himself, 
GaibaTfter indeed, soon after with his own hand in 

die death of despair, when the soldiers of Verginius fell 

upon his followers without orders from their 
general; but Galba was moving with his legions, and 
courier after courier arrived in Rome to say that the 
West of the Empire was in arms. 

Nero heard the tidings first at Naples, but took little 
heed of anything except the taunts of Vin- 

Nero's in- . 

difference at dex at his sorry acting; and even when he 
firbt ’ came at length to Rome he wavered be¬ 

tween childish levity and ferocious threats. Sometimes 
he could think only of silly jests and sci¬ 
entific toys, sometimes he dreamed of fear¬ 
ful vengeance on the traitors and their par¬ 
tisans in Rome, and then again he would 
drop into maudlin lamentations, talk of moving his 
legions to sympathy by pathetic scenes, or of giving up 
the throne to live for art in humble peace. He tried to 
levy troops, but none answered to the call; 
the praetorian guards refused to march, the 
sentries even slunk away and left their posts, 
while the murmurs grew hourly more threatening, and 
ominous cries were heard even in the city. Afraid to stay 
within the palace, he went at night to ask his friends for 
shelter ; but the doors of all were barred. He came back 
again to find his chambers plundered, and the box of 
poisons which he had hoarded gone. At length a freed- 
man, Phaon, offered him a hiding-place out- 

at G nlghTtcf a s ^ e ^ ie wa ^ s 5 an d barefooted as he was, with 
freedman's covered face, Nero rode away to seek it. As 

house, 111 

he went by the quarters of the soldiers he 


followed by 
strange alter¬ 
nations of 
hope and 
despair. 


Deserted on 
all sides. 


A.D. 54-68. 


Nero. 


127 


heard them curse him, and wish Galba joy. At last he 
and his guide leave the horses and creep through the 
brushwood and the rushes to the back of Phaon’s house, 
where on hands and feet he crawls through a narrow 
hole which was broken through the wall. Stretched on 
a paltry mattress, in a dingy cell, hungry, but turning in 
disgust from the black bread, with the water and hicl 
from the marsh to slake his thirst, he listens . 

awhile in an 

with reluctance to friends who urge him agony of 

1 i t 1 tt suspense, 

to put an end to such ignoble scenes. He 
has a grave dug hastily to the measure of his body, and 
fragments of marble gathered for his monument, and he 
feels the dagger’s edge, but has not nerve enough to use 
it. He asks some of the bystanders to show 
him by their example how to die, and then found nerve t 
he feels ashamed of his own weakness and to ,^ i11 him * 
mutters, “ Fie, Nero ! now is the time to play 
the man.” At last comes Phaon’s courier with the 
news that the Senate had put a price upon his head; the 
tramp of the horses tells him that his pursuers are on 
his track, and fear gives him the nerve to put the dagger 
to his throat, while, true to the passion of his life, he 
mutters, “What a loss my death will be to art!” 
Stoicism had taught his victims how to die with grand 
composure ; but all his high art and dramatic studies 
could not save him from the meanest exit from the 
stage. His last wish was granted, and they burnt the 
body where it lay, to save it from the outrage that might 
follow. Two poor women, who had nursed him as a 
baby, and Acte, the object of his boyish love, gathered 
up his ashes and laid them beside the rest of his own 
race. 

It might be thought that few but his own pampered 
favorites could retain any affectionate remembrance of 


The Earlier E}npire. a.d. 68-69. 

such a monster of sensuality and cruel ca¬ 
price, who at his best was moody and vola¬ 
tile, undignified and vain; yet it seems that 
a fond memory of him lingered in the hearts 
of many of the people, who brought their 
flowers to deck his grave or posted up proclamations 
which announced that he was living still and would come 
to take vengeance on his enemies. Preten- 

Pretenders • 

appeared in ders started up from time to time and 

his name. gathered adherents round them in his name, 

and even after twenty years one such adventurer, of 

humble birth, received from the Parthians a welcome and 

support, and was reluctantly abandoned by them at the 

last. 


128 


Strange 
affection for 
his memory 
shown by 
some of the 
populace. 


CHAPTER VI. 

GALBA.—A.D. 68-69. 

The accession of Sulpicius Galba was due to a stir of 
independence in the provinces. Gaul would not brook 
^ , the rule of Nero longer, and the chief who 

1 he career of 0 

Galba before came forward in the name of Vindex to 

his accession. . 

maintain their liberty of choice, and whose 
fiery proclamations hurled Nero from his throne, called 
upon Galba to succeed him. He came of ancient line¬ 
age, though unconnected with the family which through 
natural ties or by adoption had given six emperors to 
Rome. Early omens are said to have drawn upon him 
as a boy the notice of Augustus and Tiberius; he was 
hotly courted by the widowed Agrippina, and took a 



A.D. 68-69. 


Galba. 


129 


As governor 
of Spain, he 
had only a 
small force, 
which was 
not hearty in 
his cause, 


high place among the legatees of Livia Augusta in the 
will that was not carried out. Many years of his life were 
spent in high command in Africa, Germany, and Spain, 
where he became eminent for energy and strict discipline, 
bordering at times on harshness, till he put on a show of 
easy sloth to disarm the jealousy of Nero. 

The force at his command was small. A 
single legion and two troops of horse formed 
but a scanty army to carry an Emperor to 
Rome. His soldiers showed no great en¬ 
thusiasm for him, and some of his cavalry were minded 
even to desert him. When he heard the news of the 
death of Vindex he despaired not of success only but 
of life, and thought of ending his career by his own 
hand. 

So far he had appealed only to the province that he 
ruled, had begun to levy troops and strengthen his tiny 
army, and to form a council of provincial notabilities to 
advise him like a senate. He called himself the servant 
only of the Roman State. But when the 
tidings came that the capital had accepted 
him for their new ruler he took at once the 
name of Caesar, and put forth without dis¬ 
guise imperial claims. Rival pretenders 
started up at once around him. In Africa, 
in Germany, in the quarters of the Praetorian 
guards, generals came forward to dispute the prize, for 
every camp might have its claimant when the power of 
the sword would give a title to the throne ; but one after 
another fell, while their soldiers wavered or deserted them. 
So Galba made his way to Rome without a struggle. 
But before him came the rumors of his harshness and 
his parsimony. He had sternly fined and 

...... . , and Galba 

punished the cities that were slow to recog- made his 


but was ac¬ 
cepted by 
the popu¬ 
lace instead 
of Nero. 


Rival pre¬ 
tenders rose 
and fell, 


130 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 68—69. 


way to Rome mse him, and put men to death unheard as 
without a . 

struggle, partisans of the fallen causes. Ugly stories 

by t U giy Ceded reappeared of the severities of earlier days— 
rumors, G f t j ie m0 ney-changer whose hands he had 

nailed to the bench where he had given false weight, of 
the criminal for whom he had provided in mockery a 
higher cross than usual, as he protested that he was a 
citizen of Rome. There was little to attract the people 
in the sight of their new prince, who entered 
attractive 00 Rome upon a litter, with hands and feet 

look - crippled by the gout, and face somewhat 

cold and hard, marked already with the feebleness of old 
age. 

The soldiers were the first to murmur. The marines 

whom Nero had called out mutinied when they were 

sent back to join their ships, but they were 

Discontent of sternly checked and decimated. The im- 
the marines, J 

perial body-guard of Germans was disbanded 
and sent back home empty-handed. The praetorians, 
ashamed already of the death of Nero and 
their praefect, heard with rage that the new 
sovereign would not court their favor or stoop to buy the 
loyalty of his soldiers. The legions on the 
frontier were ill-pleased to think that their 
voices counted for so little, that they were not thought 
worthy of a word or promise. The German army chafed 
because their general Verginius had been removed on 
flattering pretexts, but really because his influence over 
them was feared; and they construed his forced absence 
from the camp as an insult to their loyalty, and the ex¬ 
ceptional favors shown to some towns of Gaul as a 
marked affront offered to themselves. Nor 
populace. was the city populace in a cheerful mood. 

For years they had been feasted and ca- 


prsetorians. 


legionaries 


A.D. 68-69. 


Galba . 


* 3 * 


and of the 
Senate. 


ressed; races and games, gladiators and wild beasts had 
made life seem a holiday and kept them ever in good 
humor. Now they heard that there was to be an end to 
all such cheer, for their ruler was a morose, penurious 
old man, who thought a few silver pieces awarded to the 
finest actor of the day a present worthy of a prince. 

Nero’s favorites and servants heard with rage that 
they must disgorge at once the plunder of the past 
regime. A commission was appointed to 

Nero’s ser- 

call them to account and to wrest from them vants and 
what their master’s prodigality had given, favontes > 
and as a special grace to leave them each a beggarly 
tithe of all the presents, in which he had expended dur¬ 
ing the few years of his reign no less than two thousand 
one hundred millions sesterces. The Senate 
and the men of worth and rank were full of 
hope at first, for Galba seemed upright and 
spoke them fair. But soon they found, to their dismay, 
that all influence had passed out of their hands, and 
that the Emperor himself was not the ruling power in the 
State. Three favorites—one a freedman, Icelus ; two of 
higher rank, T. Vinius, his legate, and Cor- The favor 
nelius Laco, an assessor in his court of ites of Galba 

. shamelessly 

justice—had followed him from Spain, and abuse their 
gained, as it seemed, an absolute control powe1, 
over his acts. They never left him, and the wits of 
Rome called them the Emperor’s pedagogues ; indeed, 
they seemed to guide the old man as by the leading- 
strings of childhood, and to recall the memory of the 
worst days of the dotard Claudius. Public offices of 
trust, boons, immunities, and honors were put up shame¬ 
lessly to auction, and the life and honor of free men were 
sacrificed to the caprice and greed of haughty and venal 
minions, while the most infamous of Nero’s creatures, 


The Earlier Empire. 


13 2 


A.D. 68-69. 


Tigellinus, was saved by their influence from the fate he 
merited. 

In a short time the discontent was universal. Already 
the legions of the Rhine had refused the oath of loyalty, 
and called on the Senate and the people to choose 
another Emperor, while in the city the temper of all 
classes boded ill. But Galba took one more step, and 
_ „ that was fatal. Feeling that at the age of 

Galba 0 

adopted seventy-three he had not strength to rule 

Piso cis • 

his col- alone, he decided to adopt a colleague and 

league; successor. His choice fell on Piso Frugi 

Licinianus, who was young, noble, and of eminent worth. 
But the act came too late to regain the confidence that 
had been lost, and only provoked a speedier explosion 
of fear, jealousy, and disaffection ; the more so because 
the speech in which he told the soldiers of his choice was 
of almost disdainful brevity, and irritated minds that were 
still wavering and might have been won over by a little 
timely liberality. 

The blow came from the praetorian camp in which two 
common soldiers undertook to give away the throne, and 
kept their word. A freedman had tampered 
with them in the interest of his master Otho, 
who had hoped to take the place that Piso 
filled, and who would now try foul means, 
as fair had failed. The soldiers felt the temper of their 
comrades,and Otho’s intimates and servants were lavish 
with their presents to the guard on all occasions. While 
Galba stood one morning beside the altar on which the 
victim lay, and the priest read presages of disaster in the 
entrails, Otho was beckoned suddenly away on the plea 
of buying an old property with the advice of his archi¬ 
tects and builders. In the Forum he found 

was suddenly . . 

hurried off to twenty-tnree praetorians, who hurried him 


but Otho 
intrigued 
with the 
soldiers of 
the guard, 


A. D. 68—69. 


Galba. 


I 33 


in a litter to their camp, and then presented and C sahited 
him to the homage of their comrades. All Emperor, 
were soon won over with fair words and liberal promises 
of bounty. The marines had not forgiven the Emperor 
his harsh treatment of their comrades, and therefore 
joined the movement eagerly, while the armed forces 
quartered in the city made common cause with the in¬ 
surgents, thrusting aside the officers who tried to hold 
them in. 

Rumors passed rapidly through Rome meanwhile. 
At first men heard that the guards were up in arms 
against their prince and had carried off a 

A # Alarming ru- 

senator, some said Otho, to their camp, mors spread 
Messengers were dispatched at once by the through 
startled rulers to secure if possible the obe- Rome > 
dience of the other forces, while Piso appealed to the 
company on guard around the palace to be staunch and 
true even though others wavered, and then set out to face 
the insurgents in the camp. Shortly after came the 
news that the prsetorians had slain Otho to assert their 
loyalty, and that they were coming to salute their sove¬ 
reign. The false news spread, designedly or not, and all 
classes who had hesitated before streamed into the palace 
to make a show of joy, and to conduct Galba to the 
camp, while one soldier in the crowd waved in the air 
his sword, dripping, as he said, with Otho’s 
blood. But the Emperor, mindful of disci¬ 
pline to the last, said, “'Comrade, who bade 
you do the deed?” At length he started, 
after much debate and doubt, but could make little way 
among the densely crowded streets, and hardly reached 
the Forum, when the insurgent troops appeared in sight. 
They were joined at once by his single company of 
guards; together they charged and dispersed the crowd 


and Galba 
after much 
hesitation, 
set out for 
the camp; 


134 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 69, 


that followed him, while the slaves that bore the litter 
flung it down upon the ground and left their master 
stunned and helpless and undefended, to be hacked to 
death by the fierce soldiery that closed about 
his way was him. So died, says Tacitus, one whom all 

killed ° n and wou ld have thought fit for empire, had he 

not been Emperor in deed. There were 
many claimants for the honor of dispatching him, and 
Vitellius received more than one hundred and twenty 
letters of petition from men who looked for high reward 
for such a signal merit. To save the trouble of deciding 
and to discourage so dangerous a precedent, he ordered 
all the suitors to be put to death. 

Piso had fled for sanctuary meantime to Vesta’s 
temple, where a poor slave took pity on him and gave him 
, _. , the shelter of his hut. But the emissaries of 

and Jriso, who 

had fled to Otho were soon upon the spot to drag him 
slain at the ironi his hiding-place and slay him on the 
temple steps, temple steps and take his head to feast his 
master’s eyes. The friends of the fallen rulers were 
allowed by special favor to buy their bodies from the 
soldiers, and show them the last tokens of respect. 


CHAPTER VII. 

OTHO.—A. D. 69. 

M. Salvius Otho began in early youth a wild and dis¬ 
solute career. To gain a footing in the palace he paid 

his court to an old waiting-maid of influence, ^ 
and before long became one of the most 
prominent of the set of young roysterers who 
surrounded Nero. He rose to be the chief friend and 


Otho's early 
career of 
dissipation. 



A.D. 69. 


Otho. 


I 35 


confidant of the young prince, encouraged him in his 
worst excesses, was privy even to his mother’s murder, 
and gave the luxurious supper which lulled her fears to 
rest. He relied too much, however, on his influence, and 
presumed to be the Emperor’s rival for the heart of 
Poppsea Sabina, after giving her his hand and home to 
cloak Nero’s wanton love. To cover his disgrace and 
check the scandalous gossip of the city he was appointed 
to official duties in Lusitania, where for ten years his 


equity and self-restraint were a marked contrast to the 
infamy of his earlier and later life. In 
Galba’s rise to power he saw his opportunity ^utehTpro-" 
of return, and he exhausted all his arts of vmc,al rule - 
flattery and address in the attempt to win the old man’s 
favor, with the further hope that he might take the 
place which the Emperor’s death would soon 
vacate. That hope once baffled, he calmly Rome^vith 0 
laid his plans, and swept away without com- Galba ’ 
punction the obstacles that barred his road to power. 
On the evening of the day when Galba fell he made his 
way across the blood-stained Forum to the palace, while 
the Senate in a hurried meeting passed all the usual 
votes of honor for their new prince. The 
populace were ready with their cheers, and pi^edhim 
pressed him to take the name of Nero, in 
memory of the revels of his youth. But the real power 
was in the soldiers’ hands, and they watched with jealous 
care the puppet they had set upon the throne. He had 
nothing of the soldier’s bearing, was effeminate in look 
and carriage, with beardless face and an un- TT . , . 

0 He gained the 

gainly walk. Yet, strange to say, they loved soldiers’ loyal- 

him well, and were loyal to him to the last. ty and love " 

They kept watch and ward with anxious care that no 

evil might befall him. They once flew to arms in ground- 


i 3 6 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 69. 


less panic when he was seated with his friends at supper, 
forced their way even to his presence, to make sure that 
their favorite was safe; and when he died some slew 
themselves in their despair, as the dog dies upon his 
master’s grave. Otho could refuse them nothing. He let 
them choose their own commanders, listened readily to 
all their grievances, gave them freely all they asked for, 
and had recourse to subterfuges to rescue from their 
clutches some whom he wished to spare. He had soon 
need of all their loyalty, for even before Galba’s death 
_ , . the armies of the Rhine had hailed as 

But the armies 

of the Rhine Emperor their general Vitellius, and their 

hsd chosen • 1 1 , ^ 1 /• ■*-> 

Vitellius as legions were already on the march for Rome, 
their Emperor, jr or they were weary of the monotony of 

constant drill and border camps, and flushed with triumph 
at the ease with which they had crushed the hopes of 
Vindex. They cast greedy eyes on the wealth of Gaul, 
and were jealous of the privileged praetorians; they felt 
their power and longed to use it, now that the fatal secret 
had been learnt, that emperors were not made at Rome 
alone. 

So leaving Vitellius himself to follow slowly with the 
levies newly raised, two armies made their way to Italy, 
with Valens and Caecina at their head, and crossing the 
were Alps by different passes, after spreading 
the march for terror among the peoples of Gaul and Hel¬ 
vetia, met at last upon the plains of Lom¬ 
bardy. Letters meantime had passed between Vitellius 
and Otho, in which each urged the other to abate his 
claims, and to take anything short of the imperial power. 
From promises they passed to threats, and thence to 
plots. Each sent assassins to destroy the other, and 
each failed to gain his end. But the legions of the North 
came daily nearer, and Otho lost no time in mustering 


A.D. 69. 


Otho. 


137 


his forces, and showed an energy of which 

r iii , . . 11 ' 7 tt .. After fruitless 

tew had thought him capable. He could overtures of 

count upon the army in the East, where Ves- peace > 
pasian was acting in his name. The nearer legions in Pan- 
nonia and Dalmatia were true to him, and would soon be 
ready to join the forces that he led from 
Rome. So with such household troops as tome^them? 
he could gather and the questionable con¬ 
tingent of two thousand gladiators, he set out to meet 
the enemy and to appeal to the decision of the sword. 
With him there went perforce many of the chief officers 
of state, the senators of consular rank, nobles and 
knights of high position : some proud of their gay arms 
and trappings, but raw and timid soldiers for the most 
part, thinking often more of the pleasures of the table 
than of the real business of war. But their presence in 
the camp gave moral support to Otho’s cause, and les¬ 
sened the danger of disaffection in the rear. His most 
skilful generals urged delay till his distant 
forces could come up from Illyria or the urged^ehfyt 
East; but his soldiers were rash and head- bu f he . would 

’ _ not wait. 

strong and, flushed by slight successes at 
first over Csecina, accused their chiefs of treachery. 
His confidants were inexperienced and sanguine, and 
Otho would not wait. He had not the nerve to bear 
suspense nor yet to brave the crash of battle. So weak¬ 
ening his army by the withdrawal of his guard, he re¬ 
tired to Brixellum (Brescia), to wait impatiently for the 
result, and to send messages in quick succession to urge 
his generals to fight without delay. The armies met in 
the shock of battle on the plains near Be- 

His army was 

driacum, where Otho’s best generals, forced routed on the 
to fight against their will, were the first to Bedriacum, 
leave the field, and his ill-led and mutinous 


138 The Earlier Empire. a.d. 69 . 

soldiers broke and fled. But the poor gladiators stood 
their ground and died almost to a man. The fugitives 
from the field of battle soon brought the tidings to Brix- 
ellum, and Otho saw that all was over. His guards, in¬ 
deed, boasted of their loyal love, and urged him to live 
and to renew the struggle, and told him of his distant 
armies on the march. But he had staked his all upon a 
single battle, and he knew that he must pay his losses. 
He was sick perhaps of civil bloodshed, though the fine 
words which Tacitus ascribe to him sound strange in the 
mouth of one who plotted against Galba and gloated 
over Piso’s death. He waited one more day to let the 
senators retire who had reluctantly followed him to war, 
and to save Verginius from the blind fury of the soldiers, 
or perhaps with some faint lingering hope of rescue; he 
,. , spent one more night, we know not in what 

and he died A . 

by his own thoughts, upon his bed, and at the dawn 

Brixeiium. took up his dagger and died by his own 

hand. It was certainly no hero’s death. 
The meanest of that day, the poor gladiator of the stage, 
could face death calmly when his hour was come; and 
reigns of terror and the Stoics’ creed had long made 
suicide a thing of course to every weary or despairing 
soul. Yet so rare were the lessons of unselfishness in 
high places, that men thought it noble in him to risk no 
more his soldiers’ lives, painted with a loving hand the 
picture of his death, and whispered that his bold stroke 
for empire was perhaps the act, not of an unscrupulous 
adventurer, but of a republican who wished to restore 
his country’s freedom. 




A.D. 69. 


Vitellius. 


*39 


CHAPTER VIII. 

VITELLIUS.—A.D. 69. 


The antece¬ 
dents of 
Vitellius. 


He copied his 
father in mean 
flattery and 
complaisance. 


A. Vitellius bad only a short term of power, but it was 
long enough to mark perhaps the lowest depth to which 
elective monarchy has ever fallen. His fa¬ 
ther Lucius had done good service as a sol¬ 
dier, but he came back to Rome to disgrace 
his name by mean and abject flattery of the ruling 
powers. To pay his homage to the divine 
Caligula he veiled his beard and bowed to 
the ground in silent adoration. To push 
his fortunes in the court of Claudius, where 
wives and freedmen ruled, he kept the effigies of Pallas 
and Narcissus among those of his household gods, and 
carried one of Messalina’s slippers in his bosom, to have 
the pleasure of kissing it in public. He rose to be thrice 
consul, and the admiring Senate had graven on his sta¬ 
tue in the Forum the words which told of his unswerv¬ 
ing loyalty towards his prince. The son followed in his 
father’s steps and pandered to the vices of three Empe¬ 
rors in turn. As a youth he shared the sensual orgies of 
Tiberius at Capreae, he pleased Claudius by his skill at 
dice, and Nero by using a show of force when he was 
too shy to sing in public. In the province of Africa he 
bore a better character as proconsul, but as commis¬ 
sioner of public works at Rome he was said to have 
filched the gold out of the temples and replaced it with 

ornaments of baser metal. Yet on the re- „ , 

. . Sent by Galba 

call of Vergimus he was sent by Galba to to command 

command the camp in lower Germany. Men t he Rhine. n 

thought the appointment strange enough. 


140 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 69. 


Some said he owed it to a favorite’s caprice; some fan¬ 
cied that he was chosen from contempt, as too mean and 
slothful to be dangerous in command. He was the great¬ 
est glutton of his times, had eaten all his 

Glutton and 0 . . . .... 

spendthrift means away, and had to leave his iamiiy in 
though he was, i oc ig= n g S and to pledge his mother’s 

jewels to pay the expenses of his journey. But he started 
in the gayest mood, made messmates and friends of all 
he met, and did not stay to pick and choose. His low 
pleasantries and jovial humor charmed all the muleteers 
and soldiers on the road, and in the camp he was hearty 
and affable to all alike, was always ready to relax the 
rules of discipline, and seldom took the trouble to refuse 
, _ , a prayer. The army saw in him a general 

he won the af- A J ° 

fection of the who was too liberal and open-handed to 
easy^good na- wish to stint them to their beggarly pittance 
ture- and keep them to taskwork on the frontier. 

He would not try to curb their license or deny them 
plunder if they were once upon the march to Rome. 

Two leading generals, Fabius Valens and 
Alienus Csecina, saw in him also a conve¬ 
nient tool, whose very vices caught the fan¬ 
cy of the soldiers, and whose name would 
sound well in a proclamation, but who was 
too weak and indolent to wish to rule, and would be 
obliged to fall back on men of action like themselves. 
Both wished for civil war on personal grounds. Valens 
resented bitterly the neglect of the good service ren¬ 
dered by him to Galba’s cause; Csecina had just been 


Valens and 
Csecina, being 
disaffected to 
Galba, stir the 
army and put 
Vitellius for¬ 
ward, 


detected in fraudulent use of public money and would 
soon be called to an account. 

Within a month a crowd of soldiers gather at nightfall 
round their general’s tent, force their way into his pre¬ 
sence, and carry him upon their shoulders through the 


A. D. 69. 


Vitellins . 


141 

camp, while their comrades salute their new Emperor 
with acclamations. The legions of the upper , . 

province were already in revolt, and soon proclaimed 

, . , . Emperor. 

broke the idle oath of allegiance to the 
Senate and joined their comrades of the lower Rhine. 
The two armies under Valens and Csecina 
pushed forward by separate routes to cross Vitaly, rch 
the Alps. Their track was marked by license 
and by rapine. The frightened villagers fled away; the 
townsfolk trembled lest their riches should tempt the 
soldiers’ greed, or jealous neighbors vent their spite in 
treacherous charges, and were glad at any cost to pur¬ 
chase safety from the leaders. Caecina was the first to 
front the foe, but was beaten off from the strong walls 
of Placentia after a vain attempt to storm it, which 
caused the ruin of the amphitheatre, the finest of the kind 
in Italy and the pride of all the townsmen. and victory 
Valens, however, was not far behind, and °fBredia- 
the two armies once united crushed the 
badly-handled troops of Otho in the victory of Bedria- 
cum, near the confluence of the Addua and the Padus. 

Vitellius was in no mood to hurry. He was very well 
content to move in pomp and triumph on the road, or 
float at ease along the rivers, while his guards did the 
fighting. The provincials vied with each other in their 
eagerness to do him honor, and they found that the one 
passport to his favor was to provide abundance of good 
cheer. He was glutton and epicure in one. The coun¬ 
tries through which he passed were drained 
of all their choicest, costliest viands, and iL! f s f e 'ast- 
every halt upon the way was the signal for ^f y bythe 
a round of sumptuous banquets, which never 
came too fast for his voracious appetite; while his train 
of followers gave loose to insolent license, plundering 

L 


142 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 69. 


The entry 
into Rome of 
the wild¬ 
looking 
soldiers of 
the Rhine, 


as they went, and quarreling with their hosts, and Vitel- 
lius only laughed in uproarious mirth to see their brawls. 
The rude soldiers of the North settled like a cloud 
of locusts on the fair lands of Italy ; corn-fields and vine¬ 
yards were stripped for many a league upon their way, 
and towns were ruined to supply their food. Pillage 
and rioting took, place of the stern disci¬ 
pline of frontier armies, and camp-followers 
ravaged what the soldiers spared. Even in 
the streets of Rome the quiet citizens stood 
aghast as the wild-looking troops came 
pouring in, the untanned skins of beasts upon their 
shoulders, their clumsy sandals slipping on the stones. 
But the soldiers were in no mood to brook a curious stare 
or mocking jibe, for a blow soon followed on a word, and 
bloody brawls destroyed the peace of the streets where 
they were quartered. Csecina, with his cloak of plaid 
and Gallic trousers, had little of the Roman general’s 
look, nor did men eye his wife with pleasure as she rode 
by on her fine horse with purple trappings. 
With them in military guise came the new 
master of the world, the soldier’s choice, 
with the drunkard’s fiery face and weak legs that could 
scarcely carry his unwieldy frame. He now returned in 
state to the city from which he stole away but lately to 
avoid importunate creditors. His first care was to pay 
honor to the memory of Nero and to call at a concert for 
the song that he had loved, as if he saw in him the ideal 
of a ruler. But the substance of power 
passed at once out of his feeble hands; the 
generals who had led his troops governed in 
his name, while Asiaticus, his freedman, 
copied the insolence of the favorites of Clau- 
Their master meantime gave all his thoughts to 


with Vitel- 
lius, 


who let his 
favorites 
govern 
while he 
feasted. 


dius. 


A.D. 69. 


Vitellius. 


14 3 


the pleasures of the table, inventing new dishes to con 
tain portentous pasties to which every land must yield 
its quota, and spending in a few short months nine hun¬ 
dred million sesterces in sumptuous fare. 

But he had no long time to eat and drink undisturbed. 
Within eight months the armies of the East 
took the oath of allegiance to Vespasian, 
and the legions in Mcesia and Pannonia, pasianwas 
which had not been able to strike a blow for 
Otho, were ready to avenge him by turning their arms 
against Vitellius. The main army of the enemy, indeed, 
was slow to move ; but Primus Antonius, a bold and 
resolute officer, pushed on with the scanty forces that 
lay nearest on the road to Italy, and reached Verona 
before a blow was struck. He might have paid dearly 
for his rashness if the generals of Vitellius had been 
prompt and loyal; but their mutual jeal¬ 
ousies caused treachery and wavering coun- seemed to 
sels in their midst, and all seemed to con- conspire to 

help him. 

spire to help Vespasian. The air and luxury 
of Rome had done their work upon the vigor of the Ger¬ 
man legions, and their morale had suffered even more. 
The auxiliary forces had been disbanded and sent home; 
recruiting had been stopped for want of funds; furloughs 
were freely granted ; and the old praetorians had been 
broken up and were streaming now to join Antonius. 
The Etesian winds, which were blowing at this time, 
wafted the ships towards the East, but delayed all the 
homeward-bound, so that little was known of the plans 
and movements of the enemy, while it was no secret 
that the forces of Vitellius were daily growing weaker, 
and that Caecina was chafing visibly at the rising popu¬ 
larity of Valens. The fleet at Ravenna was the first to 
declare against Vitellius, for their admiral Lucilius 


144 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 69. 


The trea¬ 
chery of 
Bassus and 
Csecina, 


war drag 


battle of 
Bedriacum 


Bassus, had failed to gain the post, of prae¬ 
torian praefect, and was eager to avenge the 
slight. Caecina, who was taking the command 
in the north of Italy, tried first to let the 
slowly on, and then to spread disaffection in 
the ranks, and to raise the standard for Vespasian. But 
the soldiers had more sense of honor than their leaders. 
Hearing of the plot, they rose at once, threw Caecina and 
some others into chains, and fought on doggedly with- 
and second out a general. The crash of war came a 
second time upon the plains of Bedriacum, 
where, after hard fighting, the legions of Ger¬ 
many were routed, and flying in confusion to their en¬ 
trenchments at Cremona, brought upon the unoffending 
town all the horrors of havoc and destruction. 

Even amid the scenes of that year of strife and car¬ 
nage the fate of Cremona sent a thrill of horror through¬ 
out Italy. So suddenly came the ruin on the 
Cremona? f city that the great fair held there at that 
time was crowded with strangers from all 
parts, who shared the fate of the poor citizens. At a 
hasty word from their general Antonius, who said that 
the water in the bath was lukewarm and should be 
hotter soon, the soldiers broke all the bands of disci¬ 
pline, and for four days pillaged and burnt and tortured 
at their pleasure, till there was left only a heap of smoking 
ruins, and crowds of miserable captives kept for sale, 
whom for very shame no one would buy. 

Vitellius meanwhile had hardly realized his danger, 
till the news came of the treachery of Caecina and the 
... . disasters at Bedriacum and Cremona. Even 

Vite lius in- 

capable and then at first he tried to hide them from the 
irresolute. . , . 

world and to silence the gloomy murmurs 
that were floating through the city. The enemy returned 


A.D. O9. 


Vitellius. 


145 


to him the scouts whom he had sent, but after hearing 
what they had to tell in secret he had their mouths 
stopped forever. A centurion, Julius Agrestis, tried in 
vain to rouse him to be stirring, and volunteered to as¬ 
certain the truth with his own eyes. He went, returned, 
and when the Emperor affected still to disbelieve, he 
gave the best proof he could of his sincerity by falling 
on his sword upon the spot. Then, at last, Vitellius 
summoned resolution to raise recruits from the populace 
of Rome, and to call out the newly-levied cohorts of the 
guards. He set out at their head to guard the passes of 
the Apennines, but he soon wearied of the hardships of 
the field, and came back again to Rome to hear fresh 
tidings of treachery and losses, and to be told that Va- 
lens had been captured in the effort to raise Gaul in his 
defence, and to feel that his days of power were num¬ 
bered. In despair at last he thought of abdication, and 
came to terms with Vespasian’s brother, 

Flavius Sabinus, who had long been prsefect 
of the city. In a few hopeless words he told 
the soldiers and the people that he resigned 
all claims upon them, and laid aside the 
insignia of empire in the shrine of Concord. But the 
troops from Germany, who had felt their power a few 
months since, could not believe that it had passed out 
of their hands, and they rose in blind fury at the thought 
of tame submission. They forced Vitellius to resume 
his titles, and hurried to attack Sabinus, who, with some 
of the leading men of Rome and a scanty band of fol¬ 
lowers, was driven for refuge to the Capitol. 

They found shelter for a single night, but Jhe°Cap^taf d 
on the morrow the citadel was attacked andsiew 
and stormed by overpowering numbers. A 
few resolute men died in its defence; and some slipped 


Tried to 
abdicate, 
but was pre¬ 
vented by 
the soldiers. 


146 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 69. 


away in various disguises, and among them Domitian, 
the future Emperor; but the rest were hunted down and 
and in the slain ' m flight. In the confusion of the strife 
fray the the famous temple of Jupiter caught fire. 

Jupiter was All were too busy to give time or thought 
to stay the flames, and in a few hours only 
ruins were left of the greatest of the national monuments 
of Rome, which, full of the associations of the past, had 
served for ages as a sort of record office in which were 
treasured the memorials of ancient history, the laws, the 
treaties, and the proclamations of old times. The loss 
was one that could not be replaced, but it was soon to 
be avenged. Antonius was not far away with the van¬ 
guard of Vespasian’s army. Messengers came fast to 
tell him first that the Capitol was besieged, and then that 
it was stormed. They were followed soon by envoys 
from the Senate to plead for peace, but they were 
roughly handled by the soldiers ; and Musonius Rufus, 
of the Stoic creed, who had come unbidden with his 
calming lessons of philosophy found scant hearing for 
his balanced periods about concord, for the rude soldiers 
jeered and hooted till the sage dropped his ill-timed 
lecture for fear of still worse usage. Vestal Virgins 
came with letters from Vitellius asking for a single day 
of truce, but in vain, for the murder of Sabinus had put 
an end to the courtesies of war. Soon the army was at 
the gates of Rome, and scenes of fearful 
carnage followed in the gardens and the 
streets even of the city, for the Vitellians still 
sullenly resisted, though without leaders or 
settled methods of defence, till at length 
they were borne down by numbers, while the population 
turned with savage jeers against them, and helped to 
hunt them from their hiding-places and to strip the 


Antonius 
entered 
Rome g.nd 
slaughtered 
the Vitelli¬ 
ans. 


A.D. 69-79. 


Vespasian. 


147 


bodies of the fallen. When the enemy was at the city 
gates, Vitellius slunk quietly away in a litter, with his 
butler and his cook to bear him company, in the hope 
of flying to the South. Losing heart or nerve, he had 
himself carried back again, and wandered restlessly 
through the deserted chambers'of the palace. His ser¬ 
vants even slipped away, and he was left alone. Before 
long the plunderers made their way into the palace, and 
after searching high and low found him at 


length hidden between a mattress in the dragged WaS 
porter’s lodge, or, as another version of the bidding P l ace 
story runs, crouching in a kennel with the and slain, 
dogs. They dragged him out with insults Wlth insults ' 
and blows, paraded him in mockery through the streets, 
and buffeted him to death at last in the place where the 
bodies of the meanest criminals were flung to feed the 
birds of prey. 


CHAPTER IX. 

VESPASIAN.—A.D, 69-79. 

The Flavian family, to which the next three Emperors 
belonged, was of no high descent. It was said, indeed— 
though Suetonius could find no evidence for The humble 
the story—that Vespasian’s great-grand- chlquered 
father was a day laborer of Umbria, who career of 
came each year to work in the hire of a Sa¬ 
bine farmer, till at last he settled at Reate. His father had 
been a tax-gatherer in Asia, and had taken afterwards 
to the money-lender’s trade, and dying left a widow 
with two sons, Sabinus and Vespasianus. The younger 



The Earlier Empire. A.D. 69 - 79 . 


1 48 


showed in early life no high ambition, did not care even 
to be senator, and was only brought to sue for honors by 
the taunts and entreaties of his mother. Fortune did 
not seem to smile on him at first. Caligula was angry 
because the streets were foul when he was aedile, and 
had his bosom plastered up with mud. He proved his 
valor as a soldier in many a battle-field in Germany and 
Britain, but fell into disgrace again because his patron 
was Narcissus, on whose friends Agrippina looked 
askance. Then he rose to be governor of Africa, and 
was too fair not to give offence; but his worst danger 
was from Nero’s vanity, which he sorely wounded, by 
going to sleep while he was singing, or by leaving the 
party altogether. Shunning the court, he lived in quiet 
„ till the rising in Tudaea made Nero think of 

Sent to com- . . 

mand in him again as a general of tried capacity, yet 
111(1 

too modest and unambitious to be feared. 
By his energy and valor he soon restored discipline and 
won the soldiers’ trust, and was going on vigorously 
he showed with the work of conquest when the news 
his skill, and came of Nero’s fall. His son Titus set out 

won the 

soldiers' to pay his compliments to Galba, and pos¬ 

sibly to push his fortunes at the court; but 
hearing at Corinth that Galba too had fallen, and that 
Otho was in his place, he sailed back at once to join his 
father. 

Vespasian’s friends now thought that the time was 
come for him to strike a blow for Empire. The two rivals 
who were quarreling for the prize were men of infamous 
character and no talents for command, while the legions 
of the East trusted their generals and were jealous of 
the Western armies. The rumor was spread among 
them that they were to be shifted from their quarters to 
the rigor of the German frontier, to let others reap the 


A.D. 69-79. 


Vespasian. 


149 


Titus and 
Mucianus 
pressed him 
to make 
himself 
Emperor, 


fruits of war; and they began to clamor for an Empe¬ 
ror of their own. Mucianus, the governor 
of Syria, might have been a formidable 
rival, for he was brilliant and dexterous in 
action, of winning ways and ready speech, 
had moved among the highest circles, and 
won the affections of his soldiers. He was no friend to 
Vespasian, for he had coveted his post in Palestine ; yet 
now, from a rare prudence or self-sacrifice, or gained 
over, it may be, by the graceful tact of Titus, he was 
willing to waive all claims of personal ambition and to 
share all the dangers of the movement. But Vespasian 
himself was slow to move. He had made his army take 
the oath to each Emperor in turn, and he 
thought mainly now of the war that lay ready and he con- 
to his hand. The urgent pleadings of his reluctance, 
son, the well-turned periods of Mucianus, 
such as Tacitus puts into his mouth, the sanguine hopes 
of friends, might have failed to make him risk the 
hazard; but the soldiers’ talk had compromised his 
name, the troops at Aquileia had declared for him 
already, and he felt that it might be dangerous to draw 
back. The praefect of Egypt, with whom Titus had in¬ 
trigued already, took the first decisive step, and put at 
Vespasian’s command his important province and the 
corn-supplies of Rome. The armies of Palestine and 
Syria rose soon after and joined the movement with 
enthusiasm. Berenice, Agrippa’s sister, who had long 
since gained the ear of Titus, helped him with her state¬ 
craft and brought offers of alliance from Eastern princes 
and even from the Parthian empire. But Vespasian was 
still slow and wary. While Primus Antonius pushed on 
with the vanguard of his army from Illyria, not staying 
in his adventurous haste to hear the warning to be cau- 


* 5 ° 


The Earlier Empire. a.d. 69 - 79 . 


and was in 
Egypt when 
his cause was 
won. 


tious, Mucianus followed with the main body to find 
the struggle almost over before he made his 
way to Rome. Vespasian himself crossed 
over into Egypt to take measures to starve 
his enemies into submission, or to hold the 
country as a stronghold in case of failure. There he 
heard of the bold march of the vanguard into Italy, 
of the bloody struggle near Cremona, and of the undis¬ 
puted march to Rome. Then came the tidings from the 
North-west that the withdrawal of the legions had been 
followed by a rising of the neighboring races, and that 
even Roman troops had stooped so low as to swear 
fealty to the Gaul. The Britons and Dacians too were 
stirring, and brigands were pillaging the undefended 
Pontus. Soon he learnt that the Capital had been 
stormed and his brother killed in the blind fury of the 
soldiers’ riot, but that vengeance had been taken in the 
blood of Vitellius and his troops. Each ship brought 
couriers with eventful news, or senators coming to do 
homage, till the great town of Alexandria was thronged 
to overflowing. Still he stayed in Egypt, till at length 
he could not in prudence tarry longer, for Mucianus 
having set Antonius aside was in absolute command at 
Rome, and his own son Domitian, a youth of seventeen, 
who had been left in the city but escaped his uncle’s 
fate, seemed to have lost his head at the sudden change 
of fortune, and was indulging in arrogant caprices. 
Titus was with his father in Egypt till the last, and 
pleaded with him to deal tenderly with his brother’s 
wilful ways, then left to close the war in Palestine, while 
Vespasian hastened with the corn-ships on to Rome, 
where the granaries had only food for ten days left, and 
Mucianus had been ruling with a sovereign’s airs. 

Meantime the rising on the Rhine was quelled. It 


a.d. 69 - 79 . Vespasian. 151 

had its source in the revengeful ambition of Civilis, a 

chieftain of the ruling class of the Batavi, 

who had twice narrowly escaped with life rebellion 

J A in Gaul and 

from the charge of disloyalty to Rome. His Germany— 
people had long sent their contingents to Us causeb ’ 
serve beside the legions. Bold, brave, and proud of 
their military exploits, they were easily encouraged to 
believe that they could take the lead in a national move¬ 
ment of the Germans. The frontier had been almost 
stripped in the excitement of the civil war, and the scanty 
remnants of the legions knew not which side to join, and 
had no confidence in their leaders. To supply the waste 
of war fresh levies were demanded, and the Batavi, 
stung to fury by the recruiting officers, listened readily 
to Civilis. They rose to arms, at first in Vespasian’s 
name, and then, throwing off the mask, frankly unfurled 
the national banner, to which the neighboring races 
streamed. 

The Treveri and Lingones tried to play the same part 
among the Gauls and to lead them too against the im¬ 
perial troops, who, half-hearted and mutiny¬ 
ing against their leaders, laid down their cesses SUC * 
arms or were overpowered by numbers. 

Some even took the military oath in the name of the 
sovereignty of Gaul. It was but an idle title after all. 
The mutual jealousy between the several clans and 
towns barred the way to real union among them, nor 
would the Germans calmly yield to the pretensions of 
their less warlike neighbors. Soon, too, the tramp of 
the advancing legions was heard along the great high¬ 
ways, for the struggle once over at the centre, no time 
was lost in sending Cerealis to restore order on the 
Rhine. 

The wavering loyalty of the Gauls was soon secured, 


The Earlier Empire . a.d. 69 - 79 . 


! 5 2 

and it scarcely needed the general’s proclamation to re¬ 
mind them that the Roman Empire brought 
faifure Cedy peace and safety to their homes, and that 
even if they could rend that union to pieces, 
they would be the first to suffer from its ruin. To reduce 
the Batavi to submission force was needed more than 
words; but the strife grew more hopeless as their allies 
fell off, and such as still remained in arms were routed 
after an obstinate battle, in which a river’s bed was 
choked with the bodies of the slain. The submission 
C>f Civilis closed an insurrection, formidable in itself, but 
most noteworthy as an ominous sign of the possible dis¬ 
ruption of the Empire. 

It was left for Vespasian on his return to heal the 
gaping wounds of civil war, to restore good order to 
the provinces, and to calm the excitement of 
restored * 11 the ca pital after scenes of fire and carnage, 
order at and the vicissitude of the last eventful year, 

which had seen three Emperors rise and 
fall. The city was beautiful again, and rose with fresh 
grandeur from the havoc and the ruin. The temple on 
the Capitol was magnificently restored, and all the dig¬ 
nitaries of Rome assembled in great pomp to share in 
laying the foundation-stone. The temple finished, they 
were careful to replace some at least of what had been 
destroyed within it. Careful search was made for copies 
of the treaties, laws, and ancient records which had 
perished in the flames, and three thousand were replaced, 
as in a national museum. 

But while pious hands were dealing reverently with 
the greatest of Rome’s ancient temples the forces of 
destruction were let loose elsewhere, and prophecies of 
woe upon the Holy City of Jerusalem were nearing 
their fulfilment. To understand the causes of the 


A.D. 69-79. 


Vespasian. 


*53 


rising in Judaea it may be well to glance at The causes of 

n , . . , , the insurrec- 

Kome s earlier relations with that country, tion in 
The first of her generals to conquer it was earikr’rda^ 
the great Pompeius, and it was on his forci- V ons of the 
ble entry into the Temple that attention was ^ome. 
directed to the religion of a people who had a.d. 6 66. 
a shrine seemingly without god. Falling 
with the provinces of the East to the portion of Antonius, 
Judaea was conferred by him as a kingdom upon Herod, 
and Augustus afterwards confirmed that prince’s tenure 
and added fresh districts to his rule. For it was a settled 
maxim of his policy to draw a girdle of dependent king¬ 
doms round the distant provinces, and gradually to ac¬ 
custom hardy races to the yoke of Rome. In the case 
of the Jews there seemed to be good reasons for this 
course. They were soon known to be a stubborn peo¬ 
ple, tenacious of their national customs, and ready to fly 
to arms in their defence. They were spread widely 
through the Empire, in the great cities and the marts of 
industry; but men liked them less the more they saw 
them. They thought them turbulent and stiff-necked, 
and mutual prejudice prevented any real insight into 
national temper, or any sympathy for the noble qualities 
of the race. It is curious to read in Tacitus the strange 
medley of gross errors about their history and creed— 
monstrous fancies gathered from malicious gossip or re¬ 
ported by credulous and ignorant writers. It is the 
more strange when we think that he must have seen 
hundreds of the men whose habits and beliefs he un¬ 
wittingly misjudged, and one of whom at least wrote in 
his own days to enlighten the world of letters on the 
subject. At Rome the Jewish immigrants were looked 
upon with marked disfavor. Under Tiberius we read 
that thousands of them were forcibly removed as settlers 


i54 


The Earlier Empire. a.d. 69 - 79 . 


A.D. 66. 

A hasty 
rising at 
Jerusalem 
spread 
widely till 


to Sardinia, where, if they sickened of malaria, as was 
likely, it would be but a trifling loss. In Judaea the ca¬ 
prices of the Emperors affected them but little, though 
they flew to arms rather than allow the statue of Cali¬ 
gula to be set up in their Temple. But hard times began 
when, under Claudius, the country passed from the dy¬ 
nasty of the Herods to the rule of Roman knights or 
freedmen. It was their misfortune to be exposed to the 
greed or lust of men as bad as the provin¬ 
cial governors of the Republic, while zealots, 
who mistook the times, were fanning the 
flame of national discontent. They bore 
with the vile Felix; but at length the inso¬ 
lence of Gessius Florus provoked a hasty rising, which 
spread rapidly from place to place, till the whole coun¬ 
try was in arms. 

The general in command of Syria could make no head 
against the insurrection, which carried all before it till 
the strong hand of Vespasian turned upon 
was P sent to the rebels with resistless force the strong 
command the engine of Roman discipline. But the war 

army. ° r 

which had begun in a hasty riot was per¬ 
sisted in with stubborn resolution. Towns and strong¬ 
holds had to be stormed or starved into surrender, till 
the last hopes and fanaticism of the people stood at bay 
within the walls of Jerusalem and the lines of the be¬ 
sieging legions. Two summers passed away while thus 
much was being done, and the third year was spent in 
further-reaching schemes of conquest, and the be- 
The siege of leaguered city was left almost unassailed. It 
waTkftTo was at P 0 ^ nt that Titus was left in sole 

fiiiish t0 command, eager to push forward the siege 

and to enjoy the sweets of victory at Rome. 
But he had no easy task before him. The city, strong 


A.D. 69-79. 


Vespasian. 


155 


by natural position, was fortified by walls of unusual 
breadth and height, and amply supplied with water. 
Within were resolute men who had flocked thither from 
all sides to defend the shrine of their most 
sacred memories and the stronghold of Theobsti- 
freedom, and whose fiery zeal swept every 
thought aside before their duty to their country and their 
God. There were also others more timid or more pru¬ 
dent, who better knew the force of Rome and feared the 
zealots’ narrow bigotry. Thus mutual distrust and mu¬ 
tual slaughter weakened the forces of defence. After 
long months of obstinate fighting, discipline and skill 
prevailed over the dogged valor of the 
Jews—the Holy City was taken by storm, and utter de- 
and the great Temple, the one centre of the the city and 
nation’s worship, was utterly destroyed. It ^a.d^i. 
was said that Titus was grieved to see the 
ruin of so glorious a monument of art. He had no such 
tender feeling for his prisoners of war. The outbreak 
which Roman misgovernment had provoked had been 
already fearfully avenged. Jerusalem was left a heap 
of ruins, and its defenders were dragged in their con¬ 
queror’s train, to die of misery and hardship on the way, 
or to feed the wild beasts with their bodies at the am¬ 
phitheatres of the great cities on the road to Rome. 

When the successful general returned to Italy it re¬ 
mained only to celebrate the triumph of the war, and the 
Jewish historian Josephus describes, as an 
eye-witness, the splendid pageant, which was J f ^ ( ! r t t r ] 1 1 ^ rnph 
one magnificent beyond all parallel. The Jewish war, 

.as described 

procession of the day began at the In- by Josephus, 
umphal Gate, through which for ages so 
many conquering armies had passed along in pomp. 
The rich spoil, gathered from many a ransacked town, 


The Earlier Empire. a.d. 69 - 79 . 


156 

was followed by the long line of captives, the poor re¬ 
mains of the multitudes which had been carried off to 
furnish cruel sport for the citizens of Syrian towns. 
Then came the pictured shows that filled the kindling 
fancy with the memories of glory, strife, and carnage; 
the battle scenes, the besieging lines, the dread con¬ 
fusion of the storming armies, the sky all aglow with the 
blazing Temple, and streams of blood flowing through 
the burning cities. With each scene passed a captive 
leader, to give reality to what men saw. Then came the 
sight most piteous to Jewish eyes—the plunder of the 
Holy Place, the sacred vessels which profane hands had 
feared to touch before, the golden table of the shew- 
bread, the candlestick, which may be still seen portrayed, 
with its seven branching lamps, by those who pass be¬ 
neath the Arch of Titus. After these came the images 
of victory, and then the ruling powers of Rome, the 
father with the two sons who were in their turn to suc¬ 
ceed him. Hour after hour passed away as the proces¬ 
sion moved in stately splendor through the streets. At 
last it wound along the Sacred Way which led up to the 
Capitol, and halted when the Emperor stood at the door 
of the great temple of Jupiter. While he waited there, 
the chief prisoner, Simon, the son of Gioras, was dragged 
off, with a noose about his neck, to the dark prison not 
many steps away. There was a silence of suspense while 
he was there buffeted and slain; then the shout was 
raised that Rome’s enemy was no more; the last sac¬ 
rifices of the day were offered in the temple by Vespasian, 
and all was over. 

The war thus closed was a legacy of Nero’s rule, for 
the present government was one of peace. Happily 
the new Emperor was a man of different stamp from 
any of the Caesars who had gone before. There had 


A.D. 69-79. 


Vespasian. 


1 57 


been fearful waste of treasure, and the Em- 

1 he econo- 

pire needed a good manager who would my and 

husband its resources, and a quiet ruler ^smsof 

who would soothe men’s ruffled nerves. Vespasian. 
Vespasian was not a man of high ambition or heroic 
measures. Soldier as he was, he was glad to sheathe 
the sword; but otherwise he carried to the palace the 
habits of earlier life. He was simple and homely in his 
tastes, affected no dignity, kept little state, and had no 
expensive pleasures. 

Much of the cruelty of previous monarclis grew out of 
their wanton waste. The imperial revenue was small, 
and their extravagance soon drained their coffers ; to re¬ 
plenish them they had recourse to rapine or judicial 
murder. Vespasian saw the need of strict economy. 
To maintain his legions and the civil service, to feed and 
amuse a population of proud paupers, and to make good 
the ravages of fire and sword, he needed a full treasury, 
and there could be little left to spend upon himself. But 
for himself he needed little. He loved his little house 
among the Sabine hills better than the palace of the 
Caesars ; drank his wine with keener relish from his old 
grandmother’s cup than from gold or silver goblets ; 
disliked parade or etiquette, and could scarcely sit 
through the stately weariness of triumphal show. He 
mocked at the flatterers who thought to please his vanity 
by making Hercules the founder of his race ; and unwill¬ 
ingly, at Alexandria, submitted to test the virtue of his 
imperial hands on the blind who were brought to him to 
cure, as in later days monarchs used to touch for the 
king’s evil. 

Stories soon passed from mouth to mouth to show how 
he disliked luxurious habits. A perfumed fop, we read, 
came to thank him for the promise of promotion, but saw 

M 


158 


The Earlier Empire. a.d. 69-79. 


But he 
needed and 
raised a 
large re¬ 
venue. 


the great man turn away saying, “I would rather that 
you smelt of garlic,” and found his apointment cancelled 
after all. But as ruler he never seemed content. He 
said from the first that he must have a vast 
sum to carry on the government, and he 
showed no lack of energy in raising it. 
Even at Alexandria, the first city to salute 
him Emperor, the people who looked for gratitude heard 
only of higher taxes in the place of bounty, and vented 
their disgust in angry nicknames. Fresh 

and imposed , n , , . , -j 

new tolls tolls and taxes were imposed on every side 

and taxes, by a fi nanc i er w ho vvas indifferent to public 
talk or ridicule, and shrank from no source of income, 
however mean or unsavory the name might seem, if only 
it filled his coffers. Men remembered that his father 
had been taxgatherer and usurer by turns, and they said 
the son took after him, when they saw their ruler stoop¬ 
ing to unworthy traffic, selling his favors and immunities, 
bestowing honors on the highest bidder, and prostituting 
as they fancied, the justice of his courts of 
law. It was said that he employed his mis¬ 
tress, Csenis, as a go-between in such de¬ 
grading business, and that he allowed his 
fiscal agents to enrich themselves by greed 
and fraud, stepping in at last to take the spoil, and 
draining them like sponges dry. The wits of Rome of 
course amused themselves at his expense, and told their 
stories of his want of dignity. A servant one day asked 
him for a favor for one whom he called his brother. The 
Emperor sent at once to call the suitor to him, made 
him pay him down the sum which he had promised to 
his friend at court, and then when the servant came 
again to ask the favor said in answer “ Look out for 
another brother, for he whom you call yours is now 


and made 
money in un¬ 
seemly ways, 
at which gos¬ 
sips made 
merry. 


A.D. 69-79. 


Vespasian. 


I 59 


mins.” Another time a deputation came to tell him that 
a town had voted a costly statue in his honor. “ Set 
it up at once,” le said, and, holding out the hollow of 
his hand, “ here is the base already to receive it.” There 
was, indeed, nothing royal in his talk or manners. He 
freely indulged in vulgar banter, and was never, it is said, 
in a gayer mood than when he had hit upon some sordid 
trick for raising money. Of such tales many, perhaps, 
were mere idle talk, the spleen of men who thought it 
hard to be called upon to pay their quota to the expenses 
of the State. 

The money was certainly well used, however it was 
gotten. Government was carried on with a strong though 
thrifty hand, and peace and order were 
everywhere secured. Liberal grants were money was 
made to cities in which fire and earthquake public^ f ° r 
had made havoc; senators were provided oojects. 
with means to support their rank, and old families saved 
from ruin by timely generosity. The fine arts and liberal 
studies were encouraged; public professorships were 
founded and endowed out of the Emperor’s privy purse. 
Nor were the amusements of the people overlooked, 
though his outlay on this score seemed mean and parsi¬ 
monious as compared with the extravagance of Nero. It 
was the great merit of Vespasian that abso- He was 

lute power had no disturbing influence on f re< r from 

1 0 jealousy 

his judgment or his temper. He had no 
suspicious fears, but let his doors stand open 
to all comers through the day, and dropped the earlier 
habit of the court of searching those who entered. He 
showed no jealousy of great men round him, and treated 
Mucianus with forbearance, though his patience was 
sorely tried by his haughty airs. He was in no haste to 
assert his dignity, and when Demetrius the Cynic kept 


and sus¬ 
picion. 


i6o 


The Earlier Empire. A.d. 69-79. 


Yet was per¬ 
suaded to 
put to death 
Helvidius 
Priscus, 


his seat and vented some rude speech as he came near 
him, he only called him “ a snarling cur ” and passed on 
his way. 

In one case, indeed, he was persuaded to take harsher 
measures. Helvidius Priscus, the son-in-law of Thrasea 
Psetus, had from the first asserted in the 
most offensive forms his claims to republi¬ 
can equality. He spoke of his prince by 
name without a title of rank or honor ; as 
praetor he ignored him in all official acts, and treated him 
when they met with almost cynical contempt. He was 
not content seemingly to be let alone, but aspired to be 
a martyr to his Stoic dogmas. Vespasian was provoked 
at last to give the order for his death, recalling it, indeed, 
soon after, but only to be told that it was too late to save 
him., for Titus and his chief advisers felt the danger from 
the philosophic malcontents, saw how much their policy 
of abstention had weakened the government of Nero, 
and were resolved that Helvidius should die, though at 
the cost of Vespasian’s regret and self-reproach. 

There was also another scene, and one too of unusual 
pathos, in which he acted sternly. Julius Sabinus was a 
chieftain of the Lingones who called his 
clan to arms for Gallic independence. The 
movement failed—the Sequani against 
whom he marched having defeated him. 
He heard that the Roman eagles were at 
hand, and in despair the would-be Caesar 
burnt his house over his head and hid himself in a dark 
cave, in hope that men might think him dead. His wife 
Epponina believed he was no more, and gave way to 
such an agony of grief that he sent a trusty messenger 
to tell her all and bid her join him. For years she lived, 
in the town by day among her unsuspecting friends, and 


and also 
J. Sabinus, 
in spite of 
the touching 
story of his 
wife’s faith¬ 
ful love. 


A.D. 69-79. 


Vespasian. 


161 

in the hours of darkness with her husband. She began 
to hope that she might free them both from the weari¬ 
ness of this concealment if she could but go to Rome 
and win his pardon. She dared not leave him in his 
hiding-place alone, so she took him with her in disguise. 
But the long journey was a fruitless one—the boon was 
never granted. Sadly and wearily they made their way 
back to their hiding-place, to carry on the old life of dis¬ 
guise and of suspense. Then, to make her trial harder, 
she bore two children to her husband. She hid her state 
from every eye, hid her little ones even from her friends, 
suckled and reared them for some time in that dark cave 
with their father. At length the secret was discovered, 
and the whole family was carried off to hear their 
sentence from Vespasian’s lips. In vain she asked for 
mercy, in vain she pleaded that the rash presumption of 
a moment had been atoned for by long years of lingering 
suspense ; in vain she brought her little ones to lisp with 
their infant lips the cry for pity, till the Emperor’s heart 
was touched and he was ready to relent. But Titus stood 
by and was seemingly unmoved. He urged that it 
would be a dangerous example to let any hope for mercy 
who had showed such high ambition, and that State 
policy required that they should die. Unable to save 
her husband, the noble-hearted woman bore him com¬ 
pany in death, and left the Emperor’s presence with de¬ 
fiance on her lips. 

Vespasian was soon to follow her. He had passed ten 
years of sovereignty and sixty-nine of life. His career as 
a ruler had been one of unremitting toil, and 
even when his poweis began to fail he would worked"hard 
not give himself more rest. Physicians ^dkdm 
warned him that he must slacken work and 
change the order of his daily life, but “ an emperor,” he 


162 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 79-81. 


said, “ should die upon his feet; ” and he was busy with 
the cares of office almost to the last. His jesting humor 
did not leave him even on his death-bed, and as the 
streams of life were ebbing he thought of the divine 
honors given to the earlier Caesars and said, “ I feel that 
I am just going to be a god.” 

Nor did the populace forget to jest in their sorrow at 
his death. When the funeral rites were going on, an 
_ , actor was seen to personate the dead man 

1 he charac- # A 

teristiejest at by his dress and bearing and to ask the 
undertaker how much the funeral cost. 
When a large sum was named, “ Give me the hundredth 
part of it,” Vespasian was made to say, “and fling my 
body into the Tiber.” 


CHAPTER X. 


TITUS.—A.D. 79-81. 

Titus was born in the tiny cell of a poor house at Rome, 
when his father was struggling on with straitened means. 

But when Vespasian caught the eye of the 
prospects ^ 1 favorite Narcissus and was sent to serve in 
l°ife of Titus high command in Britain, his young son 
was taken to court, to be brought up with 
Britannicus and share his pursuits as school-fellow and 
playmate. His powers of mind and body ripened rapid¬ 
ly, and he gave promise of a brilliant future, till his early 
career at court was cut short by the murder of Britanni¬ 
cus. He was said even to have touched with his lips the 
poisoned cup and to have long suffered from the potion. 
Little is told of the years that followed save that he served 



A.D. 79-81. 


Titus. 


163 


with credit in campaigns in Germany and Britain and 
gave some time to legal studies, till his father took the 
command of the army in the Jewish war and the pros¬ 
pects of civil strife opened a wider horizon to his ambi¬ 
tious hopes. The memories of his early years spent in 
the palace may well have fired his fancy, and his ad¬ 
venturous spirit probably outstripped the 
slow caution of Vespasian. It was Titus tiJus hope's 
who intrigued with Mucianus, who went to fn Judaea 8 * 165 
and fro between Egypt, Palestine, and 
Syria, who plotted and schemed with Berenice in the in¬ 
tervals of gayer moods, who compromised his father’s 
name and drove him to come forward as a candidate 
for empire. 

When all was won and Vespasian’s strong hand-was 
needed in the capital, Titus was left to close the war in 
Palestine and to pacify the East. The struggle dragged 
slowly on in spite of his impatience to return. 

His personal gallantry and skill in the con¬ 
duct of the siege won the trust and affection 
of his soldiers ; but his merciless cruelty to 
the conquered left a lasting stain upon his name. The 
winter months were spent by him with royal pomp in 
the great towns of Syria, where the Eastern princes 
flocked to do him honor, and alarming rumors spread 
at Rome of the sovereign airs which he put on, of the 
ominous influence of Berenice, of his unbounded popu¬ 
larity with the army of the East. Men began to fear that 
he would not be content to wait and share the Empire, 
but would rend it asunder in a parricidal war. Such 
fears were soon put to rest when in early spring he left 
his train to follow as it could and hurried with all speed 
to greet Vespasian with the simple words, “ See, father, 
here I am.” 


Skill in the 
siege and 
cruelty to 
the prison¬ 
ers. 


164 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 79-81. 


He shared 
the imperial 
power with 
his rattier. 


and studied 
magnificence 
of outward 
show. 


From that time he shared in full the titles and reality 
of empire, assuming in his thirtieth year the Tribunician 
dignity which his father had till this time 
modestly declined, and dazzling Roman 
eyes with the pomp and magnificence of the 
triumphal shows. For Titus felt perhaps 
that Vespasian’s homely vulgarity was out of place in 
the founder of a new dynasty, and that to balance the 
traditions of the Caesars and the profusion of a Nero it 
would be prudent for the new rulers to do something to 
make themselves admired or feared. He 
had himself a princely bearing and a ready 
flow of graceful words ; he excelled in man¬ 
ly exercises, and was a lover of the fine arts. 
He keenly felt the ridicule that clung to some of his 
father’s ways of raising money, and urged him to think 
more of appearances ; but in this Vespasian was not to be 
moved. He even bantered Titus on his delicate nerves, 
asking if he disliked the smell of the coins that were paid 
as the impost on unsavory matter. But in other things 
he was more yielding. He was willing to follow the im¬ 
perial traditions and to spend largely on the 
spernlargely great works which Titus raised to dignify the 
Flavian name or to eclipse the memory of 
Nero. The parks and woods included in 
the circuit of the Golden House were given back to their 
earlier uses. The palace itself was in part pulled down, 
and the Baths of Titus swallowed up the rest, while the 
Temple of Peace was built to hold the works of art which 
had been stored within it. The bronze colossus of the 
Emperor, founded for Nero by Zenodorus, was changed 
into a statue of the Sun, and gave probably its name to 
the Flavian Amphitheatre which still survives in ruins. 
In after years a triumphal arch was planned and finished, 


A.D. 79-81. 


Titus. 


i6 5 

on which we can still see the solemn pageant and note 
the great candlestick and other national trophies of 
which the Temple at Jerusalem had been despoiled. 

Besides such tokens of imperial grandeur Titus relied, 
it seems, on sterner action; but in this he took his 
measures without concert with his father. _ 

tt , i . . . . , Titus made 

He had managed to win his consent to the himself 

death of Helvidius Priscus, but Vespasian 
would be no party to a reign of terror. His son took 
the unusual step of becoming praefect of the praetorian 
guards, an office filled commonly by knights. The sol¬ 
diers were convenient agents, who asked no questions 
but acted at a word; and if any one at Rome was too 
outspoken in his criticism or likely to be dangerous, he 
was easily removed in a hasty riot or a soldiers’ brawl, 
or a cry could be got up in the theatre or in the camp, 
and the traitor’s head be called for. In one case, it is 
true, treasonable letters were found to prove the guilt of 
a noble who was seized as he left the palace where he 
had been dining; but then it was remembered that 
Titus had a strange facility for copying handwriting, 
and boasted that he could have been a first-rate forger 
if he would. 

If it was his wish to inspire terror he succeeded, for 
men already began to whisper to each other about his 
cruelty, and to fear that they would see another Nero on 
the throne. Still more unpopular were his 
relations with Berenice, which might end, 
it was thought, in marriage. Had she not 
already, like another Cleopatra, bound his 
fancy to her by her Eastern spells, and 
would he not probably go on to seat the 
hated Jewish paramour upon his throne ? The populace 
of Rome, which had borne with Caligula’s mad antics 


and his re¬ 
lations with 
Berenice 
were so un¬ 
popular that 
he had to 
yield. 


166 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 79-81. 


Sinister 
rumors 
about him. 


and Nero’s monstrous orgies, were stirred with inexpli¬ 
cable loathing at the thought. Titus tried to silence the 
outcry with harsh measures, and had one bold caviller 
beaten with rods for a rude jest. But the storm grew 
louder; he saw at last that he must yield, and reluc¬ 
tantly consented to dismiss her. This was 
not all that men had to say against him. 
There were ugly stories of rapacious greed, 
of debauches carried far into the night, of sensual ex¬ 
cesses better left unnamed. 

Such was his character at Rome when Vespasian’s 
death left him sole occupant of the imperial office, and 
from that moment a change passed over the 
spirit of his life. Like Octavius he had been 
father’s feared—he would now like Augustus win 

UCalll, , 

his people’s love. The boon companions 
who had shared his midnight parties, the unworthy fa¬ 
vorites whose hands were tingling for the money-bags 
which Vespasian had filled, the informers who had 
tasted blood and thought the chief hindrance in their 
way had been removed by death—all these vanished at 
once like birds of night when dawn is come, and were 
driven even from the city. He was full of 
tenderness and courtesy for every class, 
sanctioned by one stroke of the pen all the 
concessions made by earlier monarchs; said 
it was not a princely thing to let any suitor 
leave him in sadness with his boon ungranted, and 
complained that he had lost a day in which he blest no 
man with a favor. So scrupulous was he of any show of 
greed that he would hardly receive the customary pre¬ 
sents ; so fearful of staining the sanctity of his reputation 
that he aimed at universal clemency, and pardoned two 
young conspirators with a graceful tenderness for their 


His courtesy 
and libe¬ 
rality made 
him loved 
by all, 


A. D. 79-81. 


Titus. 


167 


mother’s anxious feelings, which made the mercy doubly 
precious. His father’s strict economy had left the trea¬ 
sury full, and Titus could enjoy awhile in safety the 
pleasure of giving freely and the luxury of being loved, 
for the people who had feared a tyrant thought that the 
golden age was come at last, and soon began to idolize 
a ruler who refused them nothing, who spoke with such 
a royal grace and spent so freely on their pleasures. 
They did not ask if it could last, or if the revenue could 
bear the constant strain ; they did not think that their 
ruler’s character might change again when he had to 
face the trial of an empty treasury and a disappointed 
people. Happily, perhaps, for the memory of Titus, his 
career upon the throne was short. He had little more 
than two short years of absolute power, when Rome 
heard with a genuine outburst of universal 
grief that its beloved ruler had caught a saify'ia ^" 
fever on his way to his villa on the Sabine mented 
hills, and died, complaining that it was hard died, 
to be robbed of life so soon, when he had 
only a single crime upon his conscience. What that 
crime was no one knew. Posterity perhaps might think 
that his one crime as sovereign was the leaving the 


legacy of empire to Domitian, his brother, whose vices 
he had clearly read and weakly pardoned. 

Some great disasters mark in sombre colors the annals 
of his rule ; in all he had shown for the sufferers un¬ 
stinted sympathy and bounty. A great fire 
raged three days and nights through Rome; The disas- 
a terrible plague spread its ravages through time. 
Italy ; and lastly, the world was startled by 
the horrors of a story so unparalleled in history as to 
tempt us to dwell longer on details. 

The volcanic energies had been slumbering for ages 


i68 


The Earlier Empire. 


A.D. 79-81. 


a few years 
before 


beneath Vesuvius, or had found a vent perhaps here and 
there in spots higher up along the coast that 
Jf Vesuvius 011 were full of horror to the ancients, but seem 
harmless now to modern eyes. A few years 
earlier they had given tokens of their power 
by shaking to the ground the buildings of Pompeii, a 
city peopled by industrious traders. The Roman Senate, 
warned by the disaster, thought of removing the city to 
a safer spot; but the Pompeians clung to their old 
neighborhood and repaired in haste their ruined dwell¬ 
ing. The old town was swept away, with its distinctive 
Oscan forms, that told of times before Greeks or Romans 
set the local fashions, and a copy of the capital upon a 
humble scale, with forum, theatres, and temples, took 
its place. Some of the well-to-do migrated probably to 
distant homes and left their houses, to be hastily an¬ 
nexed to those of neighbors, who soon adapted them, 
though on different levels, to their use. But 

repeated on scarcely was the work of restoration over 
a larger J 

scale. when the great catastrophe came upon 

them. The little cloud that rests always on 
the mountain-top expanded suddenly to unwonted size. 
The credulous fancy of Dion Cassius pictures to us 
phantom shapes of an unearthly grandeur, like the giants 
that the poets sing of, riding in the air before the startled 
eyes of men ; but the younger Pliny, who 


TPlic account 

c f the CC ° un was a distant eye-witness, describes the 
Pliny' £r scene in simpler terms. He was with his 

uncle, the great naturalist, who was in com¬ 
mand of the fleet then stationed at Misenum. Suddenly 


they were called upon to note the unusual appearance 
of Vesuvius, where the cloud took to their eyes the form 
of an enormous pine-tree. The elder Pliny, who never 
lost a chance of learning, resolved to start at once to 


A.D. 79-&I. 


Titus. 


169 


study the new marvel, and asked his nephew to go with 
him. But the young student, who even in later life 
cared more for books than nature, had a task to finish 
and declined to go. As the admiral was starting he re¬ 
ceived pressing messages from friends at Stabiae, close 
beneath the mountain, to help them to take refuge on 
shipboard, as the way round by land was long to take 
under the fiery hail that was fast falling. The fleet 
neared the. shore, where the frightened families had 
piled their baggage ready to embark ; but the hot ashes 
fell upon the decks, thicker and hotter every moment, 
and, stranger still, the waters seemed to retire from the 
beach and to grow too shallow to allow them to reach 
the poor fugitives, who strained their eyes only to see 
the ships move off, and with them seemingly all hope 
of succor. The volcanic force was doubtless raising the 
whole beach and making the sea recede before it. But 
Pliny was not to be discouraged, and landed finally at 
another point, where a friend had a villa, on the coast. 
Plere he bathed tranquilly, and supped and slept till the 
hot showers threatened to block up the doors, and the 
rocking earth loosened the walls within which they 
rested. So they made their way out on to the open beach, 
with cushions bound upon their heads for shelter from 
the ashes, and waited vainly for a fair wind to take them 
thence. Pliny lay down to rest beside the water, while 
the sky was red with fire and the air loaded 

mi 1 .1 p 

with sulphureous gases ; and when his slaves theelder 1 ° 
tried at last to lift him up he rose only to fall Pimy. 

\ J A.D. 79. 

and die. By a curious irony of fortune the 
student, whose great work is a sort of encyclopaedia of 
the knowledge which men had gathered about nature, 
chose the unhealthiest spot and the worst posture for 
his resting-place, while his ignorant servants managed 


The Earlier Empire. A.D. 79-81. 


170 


to escape. For the waves were charged with sulphur 
that escaped from the fissures of the rocks, and the 
heavy gas, moving along the surface of the earth, was 
most fatal to those who stooped the lowest. 

Meantime at Pompeii the citizens first learned their 

danger as they were seated at the theatre and keeping 

holiday. The lurid sky and falling showers 

The scene at drove them to their homes. Some hurried 
Pompeii, 

thither to seize their valuables and hasten 
to be gone out of reach of further risk ; some felt the 
ground rock beneath them as they went and were 
crushed beneath the falling pillars; others sought a 
refuge in their cellars, and found the scoriae piled around 
their dwellings. Hot dust was wafted through every 
crevice; noxious gases were spread around them; and 
thus their hiding-place became their tomb. Hour after 
hour the fiery showers fell and piled their heaps higher 
and higher over the doomed city, while a 

and various n r i i ^ ^ , 

forms of death pall of darkness was spread over the earth, 
and rum. Then the hot rain came pouring down, as 
the sea-waters, finding their way through fissured rocks 
into the boiling mass, were belched forth again in vapor, 
which condensing fell in rain. The rain, mingling with 
the scoriae, formed streams of mud, which grew almost 
into torrents on the steep hillsides, and poured through 
the streets of Herculaneum, choked up the houses as 
they passed, then rose over the walls, till an indistinguish¬ 
able mass was left at last to hide the place where once a 
fair city stood. 

Weeks after, when the volcano had spent 
its force, some of the citizens of Pompeii 
who had escaped came back to see the 
scene of desolation, guessed as they best 
could the site of their old homes, dug their 


The survi¬ 
vors returned 
and pa'tially 
rifled the 
houses of 
the city, 


A.D. 81-96. 


Domitian. 


171 


way here and there through any hole which they could 
makeinto the rooms to carry off all the articles they prized 
and then they left the place for ever. Time after time 
since then the struggling forces have burst 
forth from the mountain, and the volcanic trace again 
showers have fallen and covered the old city dlsa PP eared - 
with a thicker crust, till all trace of it was lost to sight and 
memory. After many centuries it was discovered by acci¬ 
dent, and the work of clearance has been slowly going for¬ 
ward, constantly enriching the great Museum at Naples 
with stores to illustrate the industrial arts of ancient times, 
and restoring to our eyes a perfectly unique 
example of the country town of classical s^nce°coi e - Ctb 
antiquity in all its characteristic features. lected - 

At Herculaneum there has been less done, and there is 
more perhaps to be looked for. It was a 
resort of fashion rather than a market town, lookedfoT 
was more under Greek influence, and there- , at Hercu " 
fore, had a higher taste for the fine arts than 
Pompeii; and above all it does not seem to have been 
rifled by its old inhabitant, from whose eyes it was hid¬ 
den probably by thick coats of hardened mud. 


CHAPTER XI. 

DOMITIAN.—A.D. 81-96. 

During Domitian’s early years his father Vespasian was 

hiding in disgrace. He lived in a little house at Rome 

so meanly furnished that it had not a single 

piece of silver plate, and his straitened eariy life" S 

means may possibly have tempted him to 

vice, as the scandalous stories of later days asserted. 



172 


The Earlier Empire. a.d. 81-96. 


He first attracted public notice when his father headed 
the movement in the East, but Vitellius still left him 
d unmolested. There was danger, however, 

from the from the fury of the soldiers, and he took 

soldiers. refuge with his uncle Sabinus on the Capi¬ 

tol to see the fortress stormed and the defenders slain. 
He escaped from the massacre in disguise, and lurked 
for awhile in the house of a poor friend in a mean 
quarter of the town, But succor was near at hand, and 
the vanguard of his father’s army not only brought him 
safety but raised him suddenly to unlooked-for greatness. 

The change was fatal to his modesty and self-control. 
Ele aired at once all the insolence of absolute power, 
gave the rein to his sensual desires, and 
furnedhis angC bestowed all the offices of State at his caprice. 
head> Vespasian even wrote in irony to thank him 

for not appointing a successor to himself. The arrival 
of Mucianus, the vicegerent of the Emperor, put some 
check upon his license ; but it needed all the statesman’s 
authority and tact to temper the arrogance of the head¬ 
strong youth. The crisis on the Rhine was pressing, 
and they set out together for the seat of war, but all was 
over before they reached Lugdunum ; and Domitian, 
detained from going further, is said to have sent fruitless 
messages to tamper with the fidelity of Cerealis. If 
he had ever seriously hoped to raise himself to the 
level of his brother he had quite failed, and he had gone 
too far to meet his father’s eye without misgiving. To 
disarm the anger that he dreaded he feigned even folly 
and took to hunting flies, for the often-quoted jest of 
Kept in strict Vibius Crispus, that there was no one, “ not 
V'■spastan^ even a fly, with Cassar,” belongs more pro¬ 
bably to this than to a later time. Thanks 
to his father’s tenderness or the entreaties of his brother, 


A.D. 81-96. 


Domitian. 


T 7 3 


he suffered nothing worse than warning words ; but Ves¬ 
pasian watched him narrowly henceforth, kept him al¬ 
ways by his side, trusted him with no public functions, 
and flatly refused to let him lead the forces which the 
Parthian king had sent to beg for in return for his own 
proffers of support. But by this time Domitian had 
learnt to abide his time and to be patient. He hid his 
chagrin at being kept thus in the leading-strings of 
childhood, and took to poetry, coquetting with the Muses 
in default of graver duties. 

At Vespasian’s death, however, the old temper broke 
out afresh. At first he thought of outbidding 

. 0 . 0 he ill-requited 

Titus by offering the soldiers a bounty twice the tenderness 
as large, but wanted nerve to appeal to of ritU:> ' 
force ; then he complained that he was kept out of -his 
rights, as his father’s will had named him partner in the 
imperial power, and to the last he tried the long-suffering 
tenderness of Titus by moody sullenness and discontent, 
and possibly even by plots against his life. 

His brother’s death soon removed the only obstacle 
to his ambition and the only restraint upon , T . 

' A His power of 

his will. But, strange to say, wanton and self-restraint at 
, , 1111 i r i first as Emperor, 

headstrong as he had been before, he now 
exerted a rare faculty of self restraint, as if he were 
weighted with the responsibility of power and wished 
to win and to deserve the popularity of Titus. He spent 
some time in quiet every morning to think over his 
course of action and to school himself for the duties of 
the day. He saw that justice was the first requisite of 
social well-being, and he spared no effort 
to secure it. In the law courts he was often rule wen l ° 
to be seen listening to the pleadings and the 
sentence given. The judges knew that his eye was on 
them, and that it was dangerous to take a bribe or show 

N 


174 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 81-96. 


caprice. Even in distant provinces the governors felt 
that they were closely watched, and never, it is said, did 
they show more equity and self-restraint than in this 
opening period of Domitian’s rule. 

His treatment of another class showed a like spirit. 

The rise and fall of the informers had been 
raged in- a sort of weather-gauge of the moral atmos- 

formers, phere around. Since Nero’s death the 

bolder spirits in the Senate had tried under each Empe¬ 
ror in turn to bring the false accusers to the bar of 
justice. The leading Stoics had come forward smarting 
with the memory of the friends whom they had lost, full 
of indignant eloquence against the blood-hounds who had 
hunted them to death. The infamous names of Marcel- 
lus, Crispus, Regulus called out an explosion of re¬ 
vengeful sentiment. The Senate even went so far as to 
ask that the old notebooks of the Emperors might be pro¬ 
duced to furnish evidence against the men they hated. 
But little had been really done, and men thought they 
traced the malign influence of Mucianus in screening the 
criminals from attack. Titus had driven them away in 
disgrace; but now perhaps they were creeping, like un¬ 
clean things, out of their hiding-places to study the new 
sovereign’s temper. They could not be encouraged by 
the words that dropped from him : “ The prince who fails 
to chastise informers whets their zeal;” nor by the 
penalty of exile fixed for the accuser who brought a charge 
of defrauding the treasury or privy purse and failed to 
make it good. 

He tried next to meet a growing evil of the times that 
and legacies was significant of misrule. He announced 
to himself. that he would receive no legacies save from 
the childless, and quashed the wills made out of vanity 
or ostentation to the prejudice of the natural heirs. 


A. D. 81-96. 


Domitian. 


175 


The proba¬ 
ble causes of 
the marked 
change of 
temper. 


Not content with such reforms, he tried to give a 
higher moral tone to the social life of the , . , 

0 and tried to 

great city, to check the license of the thea- raise the 

,. . . . . . moral tone of 

tres to discourage indecent pasquinades, and society, 
raise the respect for chastity and moral ties. 

Had he only ruled as short a time as Titus he would 
have borne as fair a character in history, and he would 
seemingly have deserved it better, for he grasped the 
reins with a firmer hand and wished to merit rather than 
to win his subjects’ love. How was it that 
so fair an opening was so sadly clouded, or 
whence the change that came over the spirit 
of his rule ? In the meagre account of an- 
ccient writers we find no attempt made to solve the 
problem. But we may see perhaps some explanation in 
the events that happened at the time. One 
thing was wanting still, the laurel crown of k Hl J': t ora ' 

& ° . . plete failure 

victory, to raise Domitian to the level of his as a general. 

brother. In an evil hour he coveted military 
glory, and set out for Germany, where a pretext for war 
v/as never wanting. But, high as was the order of his 
talents, he had neither the general’s eye nor the soldier’s 
courage, and his heart failed him when he drew nearer 
to the enemy. The German expedition 
ended as it began, in plundering a few poor 
villages, and in pompous proclamations to the army and 
the Senate. But far away towards the Danube there 
was the sound of the real crash of war. Decebalus, at 
the head of his Dacian hordes, was an enemy worthy of 
the most skilful generals of Rome. Bold, fertile in re¬ 
source, and skilled in all the fence of war, he had drilled 
and organized a formidable power, which for years tried 
the mettle of the Roman armies. Hither 
also came Domitian to gain his laurels, and 


A.D. 84. 


A.D. 86. 


176 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 81-96. 


here too his courage failed him. He stayed in the rear 
away fiom all the fighting, while his legions, badly led, 
were driven backward in disgrace. Unwilling to return 
without striking a blow to retrieve his tarnished fame, 
he hurried to Pannonia to chastise the Marcomanni for 
neglecting to send him succor in the war. But thither 
also he was followed by his evil star. Instead of the 
submission that he looked for he found a vigorous de 
fence; he was ensnared and routed by an enemy whom 
he had thought to find an easy prey. Sick of war and 
of its dangers, he came to terms with Decebalus without 
delay; and rare as it was for a Roman leader to con¬ 
clude a war after defeat, he was glad to purchase peace 
at any cost, and to give not money only but tools and 
workmen to teach the Dacian tribes the arts of civilized 
life. 

He could not face his people with the confession of 
his failure, so lying bulletins went homeward to the 
Senate to tell of victories never won, and to disguise the 
history of the campaigns. Honors and thanksgivings 
were voted in profusion. The imperial city and the 
provincial towns accepted the official story, and raised 
with dutiful joy triumphal statues to their prince. But 
the truth leaked out, of course, and Domitian returned 
to Rome an altered man. He read mockery in the eyes 
of all he met, detested their praises as gross flattery, yet 
resented silence as a censure. He gave costly enter¬ 
tainments to the people, but with a gaiety so forced and 
a mien so changed that men spoke of them currently as 
funeral feasts, till at last he took them at their word, in¬ 
viting the senators to a strange parody of a supper in the 
tombs, and played with grim humor on their fears. 

While he was in this capricious mood another even 
served yet further to embitter him. Antonius, a governor 


A.D. 8l—96. 


Domitian. 


1 77 


upon the Rhine, began once more the fatal 
game of civil war. Though he was soon racy against 

crushed and slain, and his note-books him ' 

burnt, to compromise no partisans, yet the suspicious 
fears of Domitian were not to be lulled so easily, and he 
fancied universal treachery around him. The plot was 
the motive or excuse for an outburst of vindictive feel¬ 
ing, which would not stay to wait for proofs, but grew 
ever more relentless the faster its victims fell. Like 
some half-tamed animals we read of, he needed to taste 
blood to reveal to himself and others the ferocity of his 
feline nature. 

One further cause perhaps there was—a frequent one 
with vicious rulers—to tempt him to yet further evil. 
This was simply want of money. The fruit¬ 
less expenses of the wars, the heavy price mom-y^ ° f 
he paid for peace, the lavish outlay to keep 
up the farce and put the populace in good humor—these 
had drained the coffers which Vespasian had filled, and 
which the easy prodigality of Titus had already emptied. 
At first he was minded to economize by reducing the 
strength or number of the legions; but he feared to 
weaken the thin line of border armies, and in his present 
mood he saw a readier way to fill his treasury—the old, 
old story of these evil times. Fines, confiscations, and ju¬ 
dicial murders, became once more the order 
of the day, colored at times by various pleas, ^us victims, 
but often too by none at all. He talked of 
conspiracies and treasons till his morbid fancy saw 
traitors everywhere around him; his suspicious fears 
settled at last into general mistrust as the hatred of the 
world grew more intense. 

The Philosophers were among the first to suffer. Rus- 
ticus and Senecio died for their outspoken reverence for 


178 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 81-96. 


The Philo 
sophers. 


the great martyrs of their Stoic creed, and 
many another suffered with them, till by one 
sweeping edict all were banished from the 
city and from Italy. Philosophy did not, indeed, make 
conspirators, but he feared its habits of bold speech and 
criticism, as modern despots are intolerant of a free 
press ; and he looked with an evil eye at men who would 
not stoop to Csesar-worship, as persecuting Churches 
would trample out Dissent. 

Among those who were brought before him at this 
time and banished with the rest one name is mentioned 
that may stand apart, that of Apollonius 
of P Tyana. S °f Tyana. He was, it seems, a wandering 
sage, so renowned for sanctity and wisdom 
that a band of admiring scholars grouped themselves 
around him, and were glad to follow him from land to 
land. Strange legends of his unearthly power gathered 
in time about his name, and words of more than human 
insight were reported to feed the credulous fancy of the 
world. In the last phase of the struggle between Pagan 
and Chiistian thought the figure of Apollonius was 
chosen as a rival to the Jesus of the Gospels, and his life 
was written by Philostratus to prove that the religious 
philosophy of heathenism could show its sermons, mira¬ 
cles, and inspiration. 

These were hard times for earnest thinkers; they were 
not encouraging for men of action. Military prowess 
and success were too marked a contrast to 
the humbling disasters on the Danube to 
meet with much favor from the Emperor; 
but there were few generals of renown to try 
his temper. Julius Agricola is prominent among them, 
because the skilful pen of Tacitus, his son-in-law, has 
written for us the story of his life. His just, firm rule 


The gene 
rals. 
Julius 
Agricola. 


A.D. 81-96. 


Do?nitian. 


179 


A.D. 85. 


as governor of Britain, the promptitude with which he 
swept away the abuses of the past, the courage with 
which he pushed his arms into the far North and brought 
Caledonia within the limits of his province, form ahright 
page in the annals of this period. But they gave little 
pleasure to his jealous sovereign, who eyed 
him coldly on his return to Rome, and gave 
him no further chance of service or of glory. He lived 
a few years more in modest dignity, without a word of 
flattery, yet not desirous to court a useless death by of¬ 
fensive speech. When he died men whispered their 
suspicions of foul play, but the Emperor, who was named 
among his heirs, accepted gladly the token of his respect, 
forgetting his own earlier principles, or that, as the his¬ 
torian tells us, “ only a bad prince is left a legacy in a 
good father’s will.” 

But though he feared serious thought and action, the 
lighter charms of literature might perhaps have soothed 
the moody prince. In earlier days he had 
turned to poetry for solace, and the sad 
Muses, whom he had courted in retirement, 
had, as Juvenal tells us, no patron else to look to than 
the Domitian who had just risen to the throne. But the 
Emperor read little else himself besides the memoirs 
of Tiberius, and the writers of his day had but scant 
cause to bless his princely bounties. Mar¬ 
tial, with all his ready flow of sparkling 
verse, his pungent epigrams, and witty sallies, had a hard 
life of it enough at Rome, and was reduced to cringe 
and flatter for the gift of a new toga or paltry dole. 
Statius, well read and highly gifted as he was with fluency 
and fancy, found it easy to win loud applause when 
he read his Thebaid in public, but gained Statius 
little by his ingenious compliments and 


Literary 

men. 


Martial. 


i8o 


The Earlier Empire. 


a.d. 81-96. 


Juvenal. 


Tacitus. 


conceits as poet laureate of the court, and had not means 
enough at last to find a marriage- portion for his daughter. 
Juvenal’s appeal in favor of the starving Muses met 
seemingly with no response, and disappointment may 
have added to his high-toned vehemence 
and studied scorn. It was no time certainly 
for Tacitus to write without partiality or fear, and the 
condensed vigor of his style, its vivid por¬ 
traiture and power of moral indignation 
might have been lost wholly to the world had not 
another Emperor come at last to combine monarchy 
with freedom. 

Meantime Rome had grown weary of the bloodthirsty 
mania of its ruler, who loved to pounce with stealthy 
suddenness upon his victims, and to talk of mercy when 
he meant to slay. It was the rich, the noble, the large 
hearted who suffered most in this reign of 
terror, and it was left to his wife and freed- 
men to cut it short. Finding, it is said, a 
note-book in his bed, and in it their own 
names marked down for death, they formed 
their plans without delay. It was in vain that Domitian 
was haunted by his warning fears, that he had his por¬ 
ticoes inlaid with polished stone to reflect the assassin’s 
dagger; in vain he sent for astrologers and soothsayers 
to read the future; he could not be always armed 
against the enemies of his own household. The con¬ 
spirators surprised him alone in an unguarded moment 
and dispatched him with many wounds, though he 
struggled fiercely to the last. 


Domitian 
assassinated 
by his wife 
and freed- 
men. 


Position of the Emperor. 


181 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE POSITION OF THE EMPEROR. 

After studying the lives of the early Emperors in some 
detail it may be well to call attention to the marked pe¬ 
culiarities of the position which they filled. 

1. Henceforth the Emperor is virtually the sole source 
of law, for all the authorities quoted in the codes are 
embodiments of his will. As magistrate he 

issued edicts in accordance with old usage ,s v!ru™Uy r ° r 
in connection with the higher offices which [ h ^ ourceof 
he held, as did the praetors of earlier days. 

When sitting judicially he gave decrees; he sent man¬ 
dates to his own officials, and rescripts when consulted 
by them. He named the authorized jurists whose 
responses had weight in the nice points of law. Above 
all, he guided the decisions of the Senate, whose Sena- 
tus considta took the place of the forms of the republican 
legislation. 

2. He was called on also to interpret law, either in the 
ordinary course of his functions when he served as 
yearly magistrate, or as the high court of 

appeal from the sentences of lower tribu- he inte 1 r ' 

r r > prets the 

nals, or through the Senate, which became law, 
a court of judicature for large classes of 
trials, and looked constantly for imperial guidance. We 
read often in the lives of the earlier rulers of the unre¬ 
mitting care with which they took part in such inquiries. 

3. As the head of the executive the Emperor must 

enforce the law. Most of the officials soon and en f orces 

became his nominees, though a few of the a, as head of 

’ & # the executive. 

dignified posts were filled up with some 


182 


7 he Earlier Empire. 

show of free election in the Senate; but the master of 
the legions holds the power of the sword, and cannot 
share it with others if he would. 

The power so expressed was unique in kind. It ex¬ 
tended over the whole civilized world, over all the cities 
TT . of historic fame and all the great nations of 

His power _ ° 

unique in antiquity. It rested upon an overwhelming 

military force, and was met by no threat of 
physical resistance from within. Nor were there con¬ 
trolling influences to be counted on such as monarchy 

has commonlv to face. Of political assem- 

without ' ... 

check or blies the popular comitia passed speedily 

away, and the Senate became the instru¬ 
ment of his will, consisting chiefly of his nominees, and 
never asserting the right of independent action. There 
was no power of privilege to face him, such as orders of 
nobility and corporations have claimed and held in 
other states. There was no powerful civil service or 
bureaucracy, such as can thwart while seeming to obey, 
and afford a potent but impalpable resistance even to a 
despot’s will. There was no sentiment of public mo¬ 
rality or national pride that he might not dare to 
outrage, for the people of Rome were a mixed rabble, 
swollen rapidly by slaves who had gained the boon of 
freedom, and recruited from every race under the sun. 
The men of dignity and moral worth might frown or 
shudder when Caligula played mad pranks and Nero 
acted on the public stage ; but their displeasure mattered 
little if the populace were merry and the army loyal. 
Religion itself had no counteracting force, for at Rome 
it was a matter more of formal observance than of moral 
faith. It was not organized in outward forms to balance 
the authority of the civil power, and by a curious 
anomaly the Emperor was at once the highest func- 


Position of the Emperor. 


183 


There was 
no escape 
from the 
Emperor’s 
power. 


tionary of the state religion, as supreme pontiff, and was 
also soon to be deified and to become the object of the 
veneration of the world. 

It was a system of unqualified despotism, without 
ministry, nobles, church, or parliaments, such as it is 
impossible to parallel, such as was likely to produce the 
best and worst of governors, according as men were 
sobered by the responsibilities or maddened by the 
license of absolute power. 

From the imperial will there was no escape. The 
Emperor might and did commonly observe the consti¬ 
tutional forms and act on the sentence of 
the courts of law, or he might dispense with 
such tedious formalities, and send a quiet 
message to bid a man set his house in order 
or let his veins be opened in a bath. A 
few soldiers could carry the death-warrant to the greatest 
of his subjects in a far-off land, and execute it in the 
midst of his retainers. There seemed no hope of flight, 
for only barbarians or deserts lay beyond the Roman 
world. But in return there was no escape 
for the Emperor himself. He could not 
weary of the cares of state, and lay his burden down in 
peace. There was no cloistered calm for him like that 
which Christian princes have sometimes found. He 
could not abdicate in favor of his natural successor; he 
must rule on, to be the mark for the dagger of every 
malcontent, and see a possible rival and successor in 
every great man or military chief. 

The Emperor’s power, again, was based on physical 
force. It rested on no sanctions of religion, noble birth, 
immemorial usage, or definite election, for it 
was of revolutionary origin and took its very f iS based on 
title from the power of the sword. Yet after milltary 


nor for him. 


184 


The Earlier Empire. 


Julius the early Emperors were not men of 
war, and had no military policy or ambition. 
They had every thing to lose and nothing 
seemingly to gain from war. The balance 
of the Empire might be lost while the chief was on the 
distant frontier, and a successful general might prove a 
dangerous usurper. 

They seldom even saw the armies, for these were far 
Little police away upon the borders, and at home there 
forc f , was so little need of armed repression that a 

handful of the city watch and a few thousand 
of the household troops sufficed for the police of all the 
central countries of the Empire. Municipal self-rule 
kept the towns contented ; and though the nationalities 
had lost their ancient freedom they seldom showed a 
wish to strike a blow to win it back. In Rome itself the 
old nobility was little to be feared. They had no power¬ 
ful following of clients or retainers, no rallying cry nor 
hold upon the imaginations of the masses; and their 
feelings might be outraged, their fortunes pillaged with 
impunity, if only the populace could be kept in cheerful 
humor and the praetorians and legions did not stir. 


force, but 
his policy 
was com¬ 
monly not 
warlike. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE RIGHTS OF ROMAN CITIZENSHIP. 


The vast multitudes gathered within the walls of Rome 
were a motley assemblage of every class and race. 
The citizens War, proscription, and imperial jealousy had 
thinned the numbers of the old families of 
pure descent, and many of the great historic 


of Rome a 
mixed race 



The Rights of Roman Citizenship. 


185 

names had already disappeared; but early under the 
Republic complaints were madfe by the Italians that the 
attractions of the capital were draining the country towns 
of their inhabitants, and for centuries there had been a 
steady influx of provincials of every race; while the 
slaves of the wealthy households, gaining frequently 
their freedom after a few years of bondage, passed into 
the class of libertmi , and left children to recruit every 
order of the state. There were still differences of legal 
status left between the children of the full citizen and of 
the freed slave, but the lines that parted them became 
gradually fainter. 

But in what did the status of the citizen consist, and 
how far did the Empire modify the rights and privileges 
of the franchise ? Of the civil law we need not speak. 
The rights of family life and property were specially 
determined by the old Jus Privatum, and Their rights 
only slowly changed by an admixture of f e n g d es privi ‘ 
equity from the Praetors’ Edicts, and by an 
infusion of the wider spirit of Greek philosophy. Tim 
poli tical privileges of citizenship we re m or e rl i r p r tly 
modified. 

"—1. OTfhese the earliest and most distinctive, the right 
of voting in the popular assemblies, became an idle form 
and passed away. After a few years the 
Comitia ceased to meet to pass laws or elect J ra ^ suf ‘ 
magistrates, for no representative system 
had been devised to collect the votes of millions scat¬ 
tered over the municipia of the whole Empire, and no 
statesman could regret the loss of the turbulent meet¬ 
ings of the Roman rabble which had disgraced the last 
century of the Republic. 

2. The jus honorum , or right to hold official rank, was 
still real and valued. It had not been an integral part 






186 


The Earlier Empire. 


of the Roman franchise in the earliest days 
ho norum °f the distinction between the patres and 

the plebs. It did not always go with it in 
later times, for we read in Tacitus the speech of Claudius 
in the Senate when some of the nobles of Gallia Comata 
pleaded for the right of office. 

3. The right of appeal to the popular assembly, or 
provocatio ad populum, in capital trials, was a highly- 

prized defence against the magistrate’s ca- 
appeaf ht ° f price, secured by the Valerian law, enlarged 
by the veto of the tribunes, and reinforced 
by the Sempronian law of C. Gracchus. But the Em¬ 
peror now stepped into the place of both tribune and 
Comitia ; he was the high court of appeal, and from him 
there was no flight. 

4. The security from personal outrage or bodily chas¬ 
tisement which the Porcian laws provided had empha- 

. sized the difference of dignity between the 

4. Immunity . 

from personal Roman and the Latin, and continued in 
imperial days to be the constitutional right 
of every citizen, of Paul of Tarsus as of the inhabitants 
of Rome. 

5. The power of voluntary exile, of leaving Rome be¬ 
fore trial in the law-courts or the Comitia, to live in some 

allied community, became meaningless from 
this time. The Emperor’s hand could reach 
as well to Rhodes or to Massilia as to Tibur or Aricia, 
and the exiles of whom we read henceforth had been 
banished to inhospitable rocks for the most part by the 
sentence of the Senate or the courts, or sometimes by a 
message from the palace. 

6. Freedom of speech and writing had been left large, 
but not unrestricted, by the Commonwealth. Scurrilous 
lampoons had been made penal by the Twelve Tables, 


5. Jus exilii. 


The Rights of Roman Citizenship. 


18 7 


and the jealousy of an oligarchy dealt „ „ 

J ° J 6. Freedom of 

harshly now and then with petulant criti- speech and 

cism. But orators in the Forum and the wntms ‘ 
law-courts used the utmost license of invective. Augus¬ 
tus was careful at the first to do little to abridge such 
freedom, and to let men find in talk the safety-valve of 
passionate feeling. But when his temper grew soured 
with age, and the Empire seemed more firmly planted, 
he became more jealous of his dignity, and the formida¬ 
ble “ Laws of Treason” were extended to cover words 
as well as acts. Spies and informers started up to report 
unwary utterances and garble social gossip. The praises 
of a Cato or a Brutus might cost the historian his life, an 
epigram against a favorite be avenged by his imperial 
master, and Lucan be driven to conspire when his 
verses had given umbrage to the tyrant. There was as 
yet no censorship of the press, no means of seizing 
some thousand copies of a journal before it had ap¬ 
peared for sale, no way of warping or poisoning the 
public mind by official lies and comments. Yet such 
freedom as was left lived by sufferance only, and des¬ 
potism needed only more spies and agents and a more 
centralized machinery to be terribly oppressive. 

7. Religious liberty was little meddled with as yet. 
Polytheism is naturally a tolerant and elastic creed, and 
a niche might be found for almost any deity 
in the Pantheon of the Roman ruler. Athe- 5 bSty. gl ° US 
ism itself was safe, for the state religion was 
a matter of forms and observances rather than of 
thought. If jealousy was shown towards any creed or 
worship by the statesmen, it was towards such as were 
exclusive and aggressive, like the Jewish and the Chris¬ 
tian, leading, as they seemed to do, to turbulence and 
disrespect for established powers ; or towards such as 


i88 


The Earlier Empire. 


were linked with sacerdotal claims, like that of the Druids, 
which might foster national memories and come between 
the masses and the Roman rulers ; or towards such as 
seemed of too extravagant and mystical a type, outra¬ 
ging sober reason or acting as hot-beds of secret societies 
and clubs. 

8. The right of meeting was largely used under the 
Republic. The contiones or mass meetings of the streets 

were addressed by every great party leader 
assembly 0 *" i n his turn > and no government had tried to 

put them down, except when they met by 
night in secret or led to open riotings. More permanent 
unions, called partnerships, clubs, guilds, and colleges, 
were freely formed, and most of these were recognized 
by law, and only interfered with when, at the end of the 
Republic, their machinery was thought to be abused by 
political wire-pullers and electioneering agents. Warned 
by such experience, the earlier Caesars looked at such 
clubs with a watchful and suspicious eye, put down the 
newly-formed and barely tolerated the older. They 
feared, it seems, centres of attraction for the discon¬ 
tented, and secret societies that might meet under cover 
of a harmless name. But before long the restrictions 
were relaxed. Inscriptions show that vast numbers of 
such unions existed all over the Roman Empire, claim¬ 
ing on their face a legal sanction, connected with every 
variety of trade and interest, and recruited mainly from 
the lowest ranks—often, like the provident clubs of later 
times, with occasional meetings for good cheer. Formal 
history is almost silent on their humble interests, but the 
monumental evidence is full and clear. 

9. The citizens of Rome claimed and enjoyed one 
further privilege, which the franchise did not elsewhere 
Carry with it. This was the right to food. From 


The Rights of Roman Citizenship. 189 

early ages the Government had bought 9- Right to 
up large quantities of corn to distribute 
freely or below cost price, or had fixed a maximum of 
price in harder times. C. Gracchus was the first to sys¬ 
tematize the practice and let every household have its 
monthly allowance from the state at a sum far below its 
value. This was to be the Roman’s salary for the 
trouble of governing the world. The step could never 
be retraced, though Sulla tried in vain to do so ; the 
price was even lowered, and the corn was at last freely 
given. The first Emperors saw the dangerous effects of 
this—the discouragement to honest industry, the tempta¬ 
tion to the idle and improvident to flock to Rome, the 
burden on the treasury of the state—but they dared not 
give it up, lest the malcontents should find a rival and a 
rallying cry ; so they were content to scrutinize the claims 
and reduce the number to the narrowest limits and to 
confine it to the poorer of the inhabitants of Rome. 

It was in this seemingly unlike our Poor Law system, 
that it did not at first at least imply as a matter of course 
the extremest poverty, for a noble Piso came, we read, 
to take his dole, saying that if the state was so reckless 
with its money he would have his share with the rest. 
It was unlike the French Socialist’s “right to labor,” 
urged of late years with so much vehemence, for it set 
a premium on vicious indolence and made the Romans 
the pensioners of the world. 


O 


190 


The Earlier Empire . 


CHAPTER XIV. 

LIFE IN THE PROVINCES. 

The Republic had bequeathed to the imperial govern¬ 
ment the greatest possible variety of political conditions 
throughout the different provinces. As in 
personal status there were many intermedi¬ 
ate positions between slavery and full 
Roman citizenship, so there were many 
stages of privilege and power between a 
humble village community and the mistress 
city. During her long period of conquest Rome had 
never tried to act on any uniform system. As state after 
state had been annexed she allowed the conquering gen¬ 
eral, with the help of a commission or instructions from 
the Senate, to define the political conditions of the 
country, and to lay down the lex provincial. The object 
of this was mainly to fix the amount of tithe and tribute, 
to map out the countries newly won into assize districts 
for the courts of justice, and to give or to withhold spe¬ 
cial privileges in the case of those who had been most 
marked as friends or foes. But the Roman statesmen 
were always tolerant of local customs, and had no wish 
for uniformity of system. They broke up, indeed, the 
political unions or federations which had been strong 
and might still be dangerous, but they respected the old 
forms of national life, and let their subjects manage 
their affairs for the most part as they pleased. Each 
country lived its separate life, with varying usages that 
had been slowly shaped in the course of ages, and every 


Great 
variety of 
political 
status in the 
provincial 
towns, and 
large amount 
of self-rule. 


Life in the Provinces. 191 

part of it enjoyed a large measure of self-government. 
Where the towns were all-important, as in states affected 
by Greek and Latin culture, there the old names and in¬ 
stitutions lingered undisturbed. In Gaul the tribes kept 
socnething of their federal character, and the old name 
for the capital of each union outlived in many cases the 
one of Roman origin, as that of the Remi lives on still 
in Rheims. In Egypt the political unit was the Nome, 
and the laws of Ptolemy were still respected, as those 
of Hiero were in Sicily. The old Greek names of Ar- 
chon and of Demarch often lingered on beside the offi¬ 
cial titles that were of Latin source. 

The cities of the highest rank were Colonics or Muni - 
cipia , whose citizens had either carried with them to new 
homes or enjoyed by special boon the privileges of the 
full Roman franchise. To this class belonged all the 
towns in Italy and Sicily and some few in the provinces. 
Next in order came the towns of Latin right , uncon¬ 
nected usually with the Latin race, but promoted to the 
rank which Rome’s nearest neighbors and allies had 
once enjoyed. Here and there, too, were privileged 
cities enjoying by the bounty of Rome the rights of free¬ 
dom and immunity from taxes as guaranteed by special 
treaty, and called on that account free or federate cities. 
Below these came the mass of stipendiary towns, subject 
to tax and tithe at the discretion of the Roman rulers, 
but administered by their own magistrates and little 
meddled with by the central government. Around each 
of these were often grouped a number of villages, can- 
tons, hamlets, called by various names, and more or less 
dependent on the central town, of whose territory they 
formed a part, and by whose magistrates they were ad¬ 
ministered. Sometimes, too, wilder mountain regions 
were annexed in this way to the nearer towns, through 


192 


The Earlier Empire. 


which a civilizing influence might be brought to bear 
upon their ruder neighbors. In general, however, there 
was no marked distinction between town and country 
life, as land-owners and farmers were grouped together 
for mutual defence, and lived within easy reach of the 
community whose civil rights they shared. 

The ancient writers seldom speak directly about social 
life in any town but Rome. It lay outside the plan of 
„ r formal history; its details were too well known 

Scanty refe- 

rence in litera- to call for comment, and the national come- 
ofThe proving dy, which must have thrown most light upon 
cial towns. j s now q U jte lost to us. The literary men 

could not live happily save in the capital. Though 
Juvenal speaks with bitterness of the trials of the poor 
client’s life, yet he still trudged wearily about the streets 
to pay his court to his rich patrons, and kept his garret 
rather than to move to the healthy country towns where 
life was cheap. Martial spent thirty years of meanness 
as a needy parasite of fashionable circles, catering for 
their appetite for scandalous talk, and selling for a paltry 
dole his wit, his gaiety, and his licentious fancy ; and 
when he went at last to his little town in Spain whose 
calm he had long sighed for, he spoke of it with disgust 
and weariness, and longed to be back at Rome again. 
Statius, again, grew tired of the city, where in spite of his 
poetic fame he could only get a miserable pittance by 
dwelling on the virtues of Domitian, and he determined 
to go back to his native Naples ; but his wife was deaf to 
all his praises of the country, and preferred the Suburra 
and the crowded streets to the baths of Baiae and the 
beauties of the charming bay. We cannot expect, there¬ 
fore, to find in these writers much about the course of 
that provincial life which was so distasteful to them. Our 
knowledge on the subject is drawn mainly from the 


Life in the Provinces. 


193 


inscriptions on stone and bronze of which so 




From this source we may trace the efforts tlon! ’ 


made to regulate the condition of the municipia , and to 
fix some uniform principles for the government of the 
most favored communities throughout the Empire. 
Thus, fragments have been found of what was probably 


the Lex Julia Municipalise passed to regulate the choice 


of town councils and their magistrates. Two other laws 
found near Malaga a few years back date from Domitian, 
and go still more into detail about the constitutional 
features of the Spanish towns, from which they take the 
names of Leges Salpensana and Malacitana . Much may 
be learnt also from the funeral inscriptions, though in¬ 
deed we should not glean much information of the kind 
from the grave-yards of our own times. But the old epi¬ 
taphs seldom fail to note the local titles and honors of 
the dead, and tell us much incidentally of the nature of 
their rank and offices that would be otherwise unknown 
to us. To these, too, must be added the formal eulogies, 
the votes of honor, the thank-offerings and words of dedi¬ 
cation, the records of the guilds and corporations, which, 
after being buried from sight and thought for ages, have 
been found in course of time in a rapidly increasing 
store. A whole city, too, Pompeii, has risen from the 
grave, to show us not merely the houses and the streets 
in which men lived and died under the early Empire, but 
the words even which their hands had traced, sometimes 
in stately inscriptions on their public monuments, some¬ 
times in advertisements roughly sketched upon the walls, 
sometimes in the scribblings of school-boys or the care¬ 
less scrawls by which the idle whiled away their time, 
and wrote out for all to read the story of their jests and 
loves and hates. 


194 


The Earlier Empire . 


The executive 
officials: 
duumviri juri 
dicundo ; 


sediles ; 


quaestors; 


In the towns of the highest class the powers of ad¬ 
ministration were vested in a few magistrates, who held 
office only for a year. The chief of these 
filled the place of the consuls or praetors of 
old times, and were styled from their judicial 
functions duumviri juri dicundo , being also 
presidents of the town councils. Below them were the 
two cediles , who, as at Rome, had a variety 
of police functions and the care of the 
streets, markets, and public monuments. Sometimes 
the comprehensive term quattuor viri juri dicundo was 
used to include both of the classes above named. There 
were also in the larger towns two qucestors 
to be treasurers of the public funds and con¬ 
trol the statements of accounts. It was usual to take 
the census every five years throughout the Empire, and 
in the days of the Republic it had been the duty of the 
censors to preside over the work, and to carry it through 
with becoming ceremony and religious pomp. The 
Emperor took the censor’s place at Rome, and no special 
officers or commissions were appointed for the purpose 
in the provinces, but the duumvirs of the year were 
charged to make all the entries of personal and real 
estate within the course of sixty days, and to send copies 
of the registers to the central record office. To mark 
the importance of the functions the honorary term of 
quinquennalis was added to the official tittle 
nal'es? Uen " of duumvir, and as such appears often on 
the funeral inscriptions. It was the more 
prized as it carried with it also the duty of drawing up 
the list of the town councillors, as the censors had to do 
for the Roman Senate. 

The town council, or ordo decurionum, consisted of 
the ex magistrates and others of local dignity and 


Life in the Provinces. 


195 


wealth, subject only to a few conditions The town 
stated in the municipal laws that have been ^ordo'decuri- 

found, such as those which shut out from onum ‘ 

office convicted thieves and bankrupts, or men engaged 
in trades regarded as discreditable, like the gladiator, 
auctioneer, and undertaker. A minimum of age and 
income was also fixed, but it was one that varied at dif¬ 
ferent times and places. 

A lucky accident has preserved for us the album 
decurionum , or roll of the town council of Canusium. At 
the head we find a number of titular patroni, for it was 
the usage of the town to connect themselves if possible 
with members of influential families at Rome, who might 
watch over their interests, and also to confer the hono¬ 
rary name on the most eminent of the local notabilities. 
At the end of the register came the names of some firce^ 
textati , or young men of high family, who were allowed 
to be present at the meetings of the council and train 
themselves for public life by hearing the debates. The 
councillors themselves managed most of the affairs of 
public interest, voted their local taxes, controlled the ex¬ 
penditure of their funds, made grants for public build¬ 
ings, conferred honors, immunities, and pensions, and 
watched over the ceremonials of religion. 

But the popular assemblies of the citizens had not yet, 
as at Rome, become a nullity. In the in¬ 
scriptions we can still read of the votes that assemblies 
had been passed “with the approval of the still met for 
people.” The municipal laws of the two 
Spanish towns, which may be fairly taken as types of 
the whole class, give full details of the mode in which the 
magistrates were named in public and voted for openly 
in all the city wards. The election placards posted on 
the houses of Pompeii show that the popular contests 


196 


The Earlier E?npire. 


were very real and the excitement strong. At times 
even the women longed to air their sympathies; and 
though they could not vote they scrawled the names of 
their favorite candidates upon the walls. Sometimes 
party spirit was carried to such dangerous lengths that 
the Emperors were called upon to interfere and name a 
special praefect to take the place of the magistrate who 
could not be chosen peacefully. 

If these municipal offices were hotly coveted it was 
only for the honor and not for any substantial ad- 
S h ffic s vantages which they carried with them, 
were burden- Their holders received no salaries, as did ' 
than lucrative. the agents of the imperial government, nor 
had they lucrative patronage at their dis¬ 
posal. Their main privilege was rather that of ruining 
themselves to please the citizens. They had first to pay 
a sort of entrance-fee on taking office ; they had to re¬ 
gale the populace on the day after their election with at 
least cake and wine, and often with more costly fare. 
The town councillors too expected a state dinner on a 
lordly scale; a present of varying amount was looked 
for by the members of every guild and corporation, and 
often by the citizens in general. The people grumbled 
bitterly if they were not amused by shows of gladiators 
or well-appointed plays. To secure re-election it was 
often needful to spend great sums on public works, such 
as roads, aqueducts, and temples; and, finally, to win 
the gratitude of future generations men often willed 
away large sums, the interest of which was to feed, 
amuse, or shelter for all time the citizens of the favored 
town. 

In the less privileged communities throughout the 
provinces there was more variety of conditions, 
for the old institutions lasted on with the same 


Life in the Provinces. 


T 97 


names and many of the same forms ag Greater 
before the Roman conquest. The agents ditions in the 
of the central government had a larger con- lowland* 
trol over their actions, especially in matters ]a r rge .i mo , unt 
ot finance and jurisdiction and their con¬ 
sent was needed in all questions of moment. But they 
were too few in number to look much into details, and 
the towns retained everywhere a large measure of self- 
government. 

Municipal freedom prevailed perhaps more widely 
than at any other period. Local senates met in council, 
magistrates were chosen by popular elec¬ 
tion, and patriotism, though confined within and murufi-* 
narrow range, was still intense. The in- cence ' 
scriptions which are found in every part of the old 
Roman world, as well as the ruins of the great works 
which here and there are left, show us how real and 
widespread was the public spirit. The citizens vied with 
each other in their outlay for the public good. Temples, 
aqueducts, baths, theatres, guild-halls, triumphal arches 
rose on all sides, not at the expense of the whole society, 
but by the beneficence of the wealthy and the generous. 

Augustus set the example first, and urged his friends 
and courtiers to make a show of munificence in public 
works, and other Emperors were anxious to add to the 
pomp and brilliancy of the imperial regime. The weal¬ 
thy and the noble copied the fashion of the 
day, which spread from Rome to the furth¬ 
est provinces, from the city to the village. 

But the spirit of imitation reached much 
further. Roman life was a centre of attraction for the 
world, and exerted a levelling and centralizing influence 
before which local usages and manners passed rapidly 
away. The ruder races were drawn irresistibly towards 


The attrac¬ 
tions of 
Roman 
culture. 


198 The Earlier Empire. 

the customs of their conquerors. Their own chiefs tried 
in vain to check the movement. Roman pride put bar¬ 
riers in their way, and agreed at times to refuse the 
franchise and the speech of Italy to the new-comers, 
but in vain. The leaven of the Roman culture spread 
among them, and their national usages and laws and 
even their language tended rapidly to disappear. The 
wiser Emperors respected jealously the local liberties 
and traditions, and had no wish, in the first century at 
least, to carry out a uniform system. But Roman in¬ 
fluence spread through many channels. The legions, 
as they passed along the roads or remained encamped 
upon the frontier, acted on the men with whom they 
were in daily contact. The traders who followed in their 
train carried with their wares the speech, thought, and 
customs of the central city. The governors and finan¬ 
cial agents who came direct from Rome brought the 
newest fashions with them to dazzle the higher circles 
of the country towns, and gave the tone to social inter¬ 
course. The journals of Rome, or acta as they were 
called, were read in far-off provinces ; the latest epigram 
passed from mouth to mouth ; the finest passages of the 
orators of note, the latest poems of a Martial, travelled 
either in the governor’s train or were dispatched in re¬ 
gular course of trade as literary wares to the provincial 
booksellers. 

As at Rome, the lower orders soon learnt to expect 
amusements ready-made, looked to the wealthy and 
munificent to give them shows and costly 
spectacles, and grumbled at their magis¬ 
trates if they were not liberal enough, or if 
they seemed to think too much of what they 
gave. But commonly they were ready with 
their thanks ; and if the largess had been 


The liberal 
outlay of the 
rich light¬ 
ened the 
burdens of 
local govern¬ 
ment. 


Life in the Provinces. 


199 


generous and if the gladiators died with becoming grace, 
the grateful people passed a vote of thanks, or made the 
council pass it, decided to erect a statue in their bene¬ 
factor’s honor, but, as the inscriptions tell us, often let 
him pay for it himself. Liberalities such as these must 
have materially lightened the expenses of the local gov¬ 
ernment. With no salaries for the chief officials and no 
costly civil service to keep up, no schools nor paupers 
to maintain out of the rates, and with so many examples 
of munificence among the citizens, the burdens of muni¬ 
cipal taxation could not have been heavy. The towns 
had commonly some revenues from lands or mines or 
forests ; religion was endowed with its own funds, and 
the claims of the imperial treasury were moderate. 

At the end of the Republic the burdens caused by 
war and confiscation, the merciless exactions of the 
governors, and the cancer of usury had 
spread bankruptcy and ruin throughout the well-being, 
provinces; but in the course of the first 
century of the Empire peace and order and settled rule 
had caused a widely-diffused comfort; the freedom of 
self-government secured contentment; and public spirit, 
feeble as it seemed in the ruling city, was lively and vig¬ 
orous elsewhere. 

The great boon of the imperial system to the world 
was the higher conduct of its agents as compared with 
that of the proconsuls and propraetors of 
the Republic. They were paid high sala¬ 
ries directly from the state; they needed 
not to ruin themselves by bribery and shows 
to win their places; they were watched by a 
agent of the government, and liable to a strict account 
at Rome before the Emperor, who had no interest, like 
their peers, in their acquittal. 


Juster rule 
of the 
provincial 
governors. 

financial 


200 


The Earlier Empire. 


It is true that if we think only of the numerous cases 
of extortion and misrule which we meet with in the 
pages of Tacitus we may believe there is little proof of 
better things. But the evidences of juster rule are real 
and solid. Oppression had been scarcely thought a 
stain upon the characters of the statesmen 
improvement, °f the Republic ; but now even the sensu¬ 
alist and debauchee often seems to change 
his nature when he is weighted with the responsibilities 
of office. Petronius, Otho, and Vitellius redeem in part 
the infamy of earlier days by their clean-handed in¬ 
tegrity in the purer air of a provincial government The 
very frequency of the trials for misrule, which may 
startle us at first, is in itself a proof of the watchfulness 
of the central power, which was as vigilant with Domi- 
tian as with Augustus. The abuses of ages could not 


be swept away at once, and it must have needed time 
and vigor to convince men that the Empire was in earn¬ 
est in the matter. The provincials themselves soon 
recognized the difference, and their literature speaks far 
more strongly on the subject than the Roman. Philo 
the Alexandrian, Josephus the Jew of Palestine, Strabo 
the geographer of Pontus, Plutarch the Greek, Epictetus 
the Phrygian philosopher, bear emphatic witness to the 
higher spirit of equity and moderation in their rulers. 
Countries not long subjugated show no wish to assert 
their freedom, though the legions stationed in their midst 
are mainly recruited from their own inhabitants, and 
become fixed to the soil which they defend and strangers 
to the Emperor whose name they bear. 

The results, too, speak loudly for themselves. The 
impoverished cities of Asia raised them- 
prospeiky. selves at once when the incubus of the re¬ 
publican governors was removed. There, as 


Life i?i the Provinces. 


201 


But no 
guarantees 
of perma¬ 
nence in 
freedom and 
good govern¬ 
ment. 


in other countries, the inscriptions abound in evidence 
of real prosperity. The cities adorned themselves with 
stately buildings ; the rich, no longer afraid to show their 
wealth, used it with lavish generosity. Trade flourished 
once more when the roads were cared for and brigan¬ 
dage and piracy put down. Commercial guilds spread 
themselves over the world, and even the provident 
unions of the humblest classes gained a recognition and 
a sanction from the state. 

Men looked only at the present, and forgot that there 
were no guarantees of permanence in the municipal 
freedom and happiness now enjoyed, no 
lasting gain in the absorption of so many 
distinct centres of national culture, nothing 
to give dignity and independence to the 
provinces, as the federal or national unions 
had done; no security that the cautious, 
easy, and tolerant government of the present would not 
be gradually changed into the grinding machinery of a 
centralized despotism. They thought of their material 
blessings, and forgot the moral qualities that should 
make them lasting. They looked back with a feeling 
of relief at the turbulence of former days, at the evils 
done and suffered in the name of liberty, and felt with 
Dion Chrysostom, “ Our fathers fought, as they believed, 
for freedom, but really for a phantom of the fancy, like 
the Trojans who fought in defence of Helen when she 
was no longer within their walls.” 

Thus it was in no mean spirit of flattery that they 
raised in every land statues and altars to the Emperors, 
to some even of the vilest who have ever ruled. Of 
their personal characters they often knew but little; and 
though dark stories of what had passed at Rome may 
have circulated awhile among the higher classes in the 


202 


The Earlier Empire. 


provinces, yet the people knew next to nothing of their 
vices and their follies, and thought of them chiefly as 
the symbol of the ruling Providence which throughout 
the civilized world had silenced war and faction, and 
secured the blessings of prosperity and peace, before 
unknown. 


CHAPTER XV. 


The early 
contempt for 
industrial 
art at Rome, 


THE STATE OF TRADE. 

To appreciate the influence of the Empire upon the 
interests of commerce it is needful to look back to some 
of the facts and feelings of earlier days. The 
Roman writers speak commonly with dis¬ 
favor and contempt of the handicrafts and 
retail trades, and the common sentiment 
which they reflect seems to have grown more intense in 
the later ages of the Republic, at the very time when the 
tendency towards democracy became more marked. 
While the hardy life of the old yeoman was the ideal of 
the moralist and patriot, the work of the artizan or 
tradesman was a lasting stain upon a family name. 
This was due probably in part to the warlike and aggres¬ 
sive spirit of the old Roman policy, which relied chiefly 
on its husbandmen and shepherds to fill the 
warlike 1 spirit ranks of its militia, while the industrial arts 

which was fell j n f 0 the hands of the needv homeless 
festered, . J 

aliens who were attracted to the city and 
could not serve among the freemen in the armies. The 
growing contempt for the weaker races of Greece and 
Asia heightened the dislike for the trades they filled and 
the work which they monopolized. But above all the 



The State of Trade . 203 

vast influx of slave labor that followed the career of con¬ 
quest supplied living tools for every need, and the 
made manual work seem servile, and rapidly influx ^of 
drove free labor out of every field. The 
tendency extended even from the industrial to the fine 
arts, and to some even of what we call the learned pro¬ 
fessions. The great Roman households had highly-edu¬ 
cated slaves, who were trained to amuse their masters 
and to satisfy their aesthetic tastes. In old time Fabius 
Pictor had gained a name for skill in painting, but 
it would have been a discredit in a later age; and Pliny 
tells us of one of gentle birth who was mocked at and 
insulted for taking to the art. Roman dignity, says the 
same writer, will not stoop to practise medicine, but 
leaves it to the Greek and freedman. Slaves were 
trained to be actors on the stage ; and much 
as the Romans loved spectacles, they could 
not themselves act without disgrace, except 
in the old Atellan farces, which, says Livy, 
were never poltuted by professional actors. 

Education was mainly in the hands of aliens and freed- 
men, who kept schools under the name of grammarians 
or rhetoricians, and the same classes also supplied the 
copyists, librarians, and secretaries whose useful labors 
furnished the materials that were worked up by literary 
men of note. 

But while the Romans disdained retail trade and 
manual labor, they had not the same dislike for com¬ 
mercial enterprise upon a larger scale. Soon 
after the Punic wars we may trace the rapid 
growth of a class of great speculators and 
contractors, who belonged chiefly to the 
second order of the state, the Equites , and 
whose objects were more financial than political. 


Disdain of 
retail trade 
did not ex¬ 
tend to com¬ 
merce on a 
larger scale. 


The contempt 
extended to 
professions 
and the fine 
arts. 


204 


The Earlier Empire. 


They followed the movements of the conquering 
armies, engaged to supply the commissariat, formed joint- 
stock companies for every variety of under- 
a*dassof f taking, farmed the revenues of the lands 
capitalists annexed to the Roman Empire, profited by 
the monopolies of commerce when the old 
federal unions were broken up and trading intercourse 
was suspended between the members, and came for¬ 
ward as money-lenders to advance the sums to be paid 
down in indemnities or confiscated by the governors’ 
greed. At home they lent their money to the bankers, 
or bought up lands in times of cheapness, like Pom- 
ponicus Atticus, or had their slaves highly educated 
in industrial arts, or speculated in building-land, like 
Crassus. But their energy was of little profit to the 
world, nor did it further the legitimate interests of trade. 
It enriched Rome, or a few hundreds of its citizens, 
but it impoverished the provinces. It made 

who en- wealth change hands ; but it did not stimu- 

riched them- . 

selves without late production or facilitate exchange or 
wmicL t0 the promote the growth of peaceful enterprise. 

The influence of the moneyed aristocracy 
upon the central government had long been very great; 
and if trade had not been the gainer for it, it was not from 
lack of power on their part, but of will or insight. They 
could make their resentment felt by the few proconsuls ) 
who were clean-handed themselves, and who would not 
stand by and see wrong done. They could protect in 
the Roman courts the more criminal and unscrupulous 
of their body. They could in their short-sighted jealousy 
strike down great commercial rivals, as in the case of 
Carthage, Corinth, and Rhodes ; but they do not seem 
to have raised their voices to protest while war was de¬ 
stroying or weakening so many distinct centres of civi- 


The State of Trade. 


205 


What the 
Empire did 
for trade. 


lization and production throughout Italy, while injudi¬ 
cious taxation and bad poor-law systems were injuring 
industry, and sumptuary laws discouraging consumption, 
while roads were made rather for the transport of armies 
than for the interchange of products. They were never 
so strong a power in the state as towards the close of the 
Republic, when the corsairs swept the seas and organized 
themselves almost as a belligerent power, while on the 
mainland runaway slave-bands and professional bri¬ 
gands were infesting the highways. 

We may now turn to trace the action of the Em¬ 
pire upon these conditions. When Augustus was finally 
seated in his place, it was his first aim to 
secure the high-roads of commerce, and to 
maintain safety of intercourse throughout the 
Roman world. He put down brigandage with a strong 
hand, appointing special officers to do the 

XL oCCU 1 C Li 

work and armed patrols to maintain peace the roads 
and order. Inspectors visited the factories 
and farms in country districts, where the slave-gangs 
toiled in chains, restored to liberty many who had been 
kidnapped by violence, and returned to their masters 
some thirty thousand runaways. The highways were 
made safe for quiet travellers, though the satires and 
romances still speak of brigands from time to time, just 
as they are brought occasionally upon the modern stage. 
On the seas, too, piracy was put down, and almost 
banished for centuries from the Mediterranean, though 
in the Black Sea it was still a matter of complaint. 

It was a greater boon to trade that war was 
confined mainly to the frontiers, among the scarcely 
civilized neighbors of the Empire. After confined 
Nero’s death, indeed, great armies tramped 
across the central countries, spreading havoc 


war to the 
frontiers. 


206 


The Earlier Empire. 


removed a 
variety of 
checks and 
hindrances. 


portant. 


and desolation in their track, but with this exception 
the soldiers were confined to border camps, and no fatal 
check was given by the horrors of war to peaceful enter¬ 
prise and industry. 

By a series of further measures the Empire did its 
best to remove checks and hindrances to the activity of 
commerce. The careful survey and census 
of the Roman world under Augustus was one 
step to prepare the way for equalized taxa¬ 
tion, and it was followed by others as im- 
Financial agents were watchfully controlled ; 
legalized tariffs of the tolls and dues were made stricter 
to resist vexatious overcharge, while the courts of law 
administered more impartial justice between the official 
and the common subject. The old sumptuary laws 
which aimed at checking luxury and extravagance, were 
given up after a short trial and regarded as a mischiev¬ 
ous anachronism. The endless variety of monetary 
systems which delayed easy intercourse between land 
and land soon ceased to inconvenience the world. Many 
of them disappeared, others were kept for local use or 
retail trade; but by their side one uniform standard was 
set up, and beyond all the various national coinages the 
imperial currency was the legalized tender which appears 
henceforth in official documents in all parts of the 
Roman world. 

Still more direct was the influence on sentiment 
which affected the social estimate of industrial art. 

Slavery had been the formidable rival of free 
labor; but the countries which in earlier 
times had supplied the most serviceable 
tools were now annexed, and only an outer 
fringe of barbarians was left to supply the slave markets 
by wars of conquest. The Northern nations furnished 


diminished 
indirectly 
the supply of 
slave labor. 


The State of Trade. 


207 


lessened the 
competition 
of war and 
politics. 


less pliant and docile laborers, whose work was far less 
lucrative than that of Greeks and Asiatics. As the 
sources of supply were being cut off, the fashion of en¬ 
franchisement set in, and the slave-born were set free 
so rapidly that laws had to be passed to check the 
growing custom. At the very time when the competition 
of slave labor was reduced, less scope was 
left to enterprise in what had been before 
absorbing interests. The old game of war 
gave fewer prizes, and the soldier’s life 
seemed likely to be henceforth one of monotony and 
patient drill. The statesman’s career was less tempting 
to ambition when the show of talent might be dangerous 
and stir the jealousy of Caesar. The laurels of the ora¬ 
tor^ soon faded when power passed out of the Senate’s 
hands, and when the pleadings of the law-courts had no 
influence on the course of public life. But in the place 
of these interests of the Republic the early Emperors had 
tried to foster industry and learning. Julius gave the 

grant of citizenship to all who would practise „„ „ 

r 1 The Emperors 

liberal professions; Augustus encouraged favored the 

literary labor through Maecenas ; and Nero, benches of 

the artist-prince, weakened the old senti- industnal art - 

ment in other branches. In short we soon lose all traces 

of the feeling which prompted Cicero in his public 

speeches to disguise his familiar knowledge of the culture 

and the arts of Greece. 

The currents of national sentiment could no longer 
flow in separate channels, as men of every people flocked 
to Rome. In Asia handicrafts and indus¬ 
trial labor had never been despised, and the 
gradual infusion of Eastern thought weak¬ 
ened the supercilious pride of Western prejudice. Some¬ 
thing too was directly done by Augustus to give a higher 


Influence of 

Eastern 

sentiment. 


208 


The Earlier Empire. 


The higher 
status given to 
industrial 
classes 
through the 
dignity of 
viagistri 
vicorum. 


status to the industrial classes. A new office and badge 
of dignity was devised by the appointment of the 
“ Masters of the Streets,” a large number of whom were 
taken from among the artisans and freed- 
men of the city, to discharge certain police 
duties, and also to minister as priests in the 
little chapels raised in honor of the Genius 
of Rome and of the ruling Emperor. Guilds 
answering to this office spread, under the 
name of Augustales, through the towns, and helped to 
give organized force and self-respect to retail trade and 
manual labor. 

It is still, indeed, a striking fact that there is no refer¬ 
ence in Latin literature to any history of trade ; nor do 
we hear of special treatises connected with the subject, 
though the works on agriculture were many. Nothing 
is said of the moral benefits of international commerce ; 

nor, careful as the Romans were about 
statistics, did they connect them with the 
balance of supply and of demand. Yet 
under cover of the imperial regime a vast 
system of free trade began to flourish, such as the world 
perhaps has seldom known. Merchant fleets passed 
peacefully from land to land and exchanged the pro¬ 
ducts of their different climates, while the central gov¬ 
ernment was content to keep the police of sea and land, 
allowing tolls and harbor dues to be levied for purposes 
of local revenue, and watching over the corn trade with 
especial care, that the markets of the capital might be 
always stocked. But this trade was hampered with no 
theories of protection, and was not interfered with by 
commercial or navigation laws. The vast population 
gathered in one city required, of course, an enormous 
retail trade upon the spot; but there were few manu- 


Without liter¬ 
ary notice a 
vast system of 
free trade 
flourished. 


Depopulation of Italy a?id Greece. 209 

factories upon a large scale near Rome. The necessa¬ 
ries of life came largely from the South and West, the 
luxuries from the East, while industrial wares were 
brought for the most part ready-made, owing to the 
greater cheapness of labor in other countries. The 
balance of trade was always against Italy, Balance of 
for she failed to supply herself even with trade a s ainst 
food, exported little beside wine and oil, and > 
had few great manufacturing centres. In old days the 
riches that had been gained by plunder and extortion 
went out again to seek investment in the provinces; but 
now that Rome was the queen of fashion and the centre 
of attraction for the wealthy of all countries, the realized 
fortunes came thither to be spent. The productive cen¬ 
tres and the hives of industry were to be found in other 
lands—at Alexandria, which Strabo calls the greatest 
emporium of the world ; at the flourishing marts of 
trade among the isles of the Aegean ; or among the 
hundred cities of Asia Minor, whose industrial demo¬ 
cracies had soon recovered from the pillage and mis- 
government of republican proconsuls, and enjoyed a 
magnificent prosperity, with which no other land could 
vie. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THE GROWING DEPOPULATION OF ITALY AND GREECE, 

Among all these evidences of material well-being there 
were ominous signs to catch the watchful eye. The 
queen of cities had clothed herself in pomp 

1 r 1 1 he ominous 

and splendor; and stately villas, parks, and signs of de- 

, . . population. 

pleasure-grounds were spread over the 



210 


The EciJ'lier Empire. 


count of 
Greece. 


country ; but Italy herself grew poor in men, in moral 
energy, and in natural products. The culture of Greece 
had made its way over the world ; but her cities of re¬ 
nown were sadly dwindled, and scanty populations lived 
among the ghosts of former glories. The heart of the 
Strabo’s ac- Empire was growing more feeble, though 
the extremities were sound. Strabo, who 
travelled in Greece early in this period, 
gives in his geography a melancholy list of ruined and 
deserted towns. ALtoha. and Acarnania were exhausted ; 
Doris has no trace of her ancient peoples. Thebes was 
a poor village cowering within the walls of the old 
citadel; and save Tanagra and Thespiae in all Boeotia 
there were only pauperized hamlets. Messenia and Ar¬ 
cadia were deserts. Laconia had not men enough to till 
it, and seventy of the hundred townships of old times 
were quite abandoned. 

As early as the days of the historian Polybius it was 
observed that Italy could no more put into the field such 
forces as she raised in the second Punic war, and that 
not for lack of manhood but of men. The 
Gracchi not long after called public notice 
to the fact of the decreasing numbers of 
free laborers in the country, and tried to 
check the evil by sweeping changes in the 
tenure of land. Again in the first years of 
the Empire complaints mingled with alarm are heard on 
every side. Livy speaks with wonder of 
Livy. the armies that fought in old time upon the 

battle-fields of Latium, and says that in his 
day only a few slaves tenanted the lands that were once 
the home of so many hardy warriors. Pliny tells us of 
more than fifty towns in Latium alone that 
had passed away and left no traces, and of 


Polybius 
notices the 
diminishing 
military force 
of Italy. 

The Gracchi. 


Pliny. 


Depopulation of Italy and Greece. 


21 * 


the ruins of old peoples that the traveller found in ever) 
part of Central Italy. Dion Cassius men- _ _ . 

, Dion Cassius. 

tions the ‘ terrible depopulation” which 
Julius Caesar noted with concern, and the difficulty which 
Augustus found in levying troops to fill up the void 
made by the loss of Varus and his legions ; while Pliny 
tells us of the grief and wounded pride which the same 
Emperor felt when he enlisted slaves in place of free¬ 
men. 

The stress which Augustus laid upon the remedies 
which he applied shows how urgent seemed the evil. He 
reduced, and would have limited still further Attempts of 
had he dared, the number of the paupers Augustus to 
on the free list of the state, to check if pos¬ 
sible the drain upon the public funds and the great dis¬ 
couragement to industry. He drafted off his veterans 
into colonies and bought them lands in every part of 
Italy to recruit with healthy labor the decaying muni- 
cipia. He provided an outlet even for the city populace, 
supplying them with land in settlements beyond the sea. 
Finding among the higher and middle classes a wide¬ 
spread dislike to the burdens of married life, he tried to 
bring legal pressure to bear upon the morbid sentiment, 
enacted civil disabilities against those who would not 
marry, and various privileges for those who had given 
legitimate children to the state. The laws Papia Pop- 
paea were passed in the teeth of serious opposition ; but, 
as we have seen, it was a current jest that the consuls 
whose names they bore were bachelors themselves; and 
Plutarch tells us that many married, not to have heirs 
but to become heirs themselves, since they could only 
receive legacies on that condition. What causes had 
brought about this ominous decline in numbers ? 

I. The career of Rome had been one of constant war- 


212 


The Earlier Empire. 


fare. The obstinate resistance of the ^Equian, Volscian, 
The causes of an d Sabine races gave a formidable check 

decline. to the laws of natural increase. It was long 

i. War. 

before Italy recovered the fearful waste of 
life and means caused by the Punic struggles. To 
gratify the ambition of the ruling classes, to gain fresh 
lands for them to rule, the bones of the Italian yeomen 
were left to moulder in every country to which the con¬ 
quering eagles made their way. The losses in the So¬ 
cial War alone are set down in the lowest estimate at 
three hundred thousand men, and are raised by some 
writers to a million. But, exhausting as was the con¬ 
stant drain of life, it was not too great perhaps for na¬ 
ture’s forces to resist if others had not come also into 
play, whose influence lasted on when the Empire en¬ 
joyed at length a period of peace. 

2. The land-owners of Central Italy had been long 
unable to compete with the corn-growers of foreign 
lands. The stores of Sicily and Africa had been poured 
into their markets : the tithes paid in kind had been 
brought to the capital in natural course ; governors had 
sent large quantities to be sold below cost price at Rome 
to keep her populace in good humor. Carriage by seat 
had proved cheaper than that by land over 
bad country roads, and free trade and the 
policy of the government together ruined 
the corn-trade of the husbandmen of Italy. 

The small proprietors or yeomen could no 
longer pay their way or hold their land, and were bought 
out by the capitalists who sought investments for wealth 
gained in subject countries. The small farms gave 
place to the great holdings of the rich, the “ latifundia 
quae perdidere Italiam,” the vast domains which were 
the bane of Italy. Pasturage superseded tillage, and 


2. Change from 
peasant pro¬ 
prietors to 
large estates, 
with slave 
labor. 


Depopulation of Italy and Greece. 


213 


slave labor took the place of free. A few wild herdsmen 
and shepherds wandering at large, with here and there 
a slave-gang laboring in chains, was all that could be 
seen in districts that had once been thickly set with 
thriving villages. 

3. Slavery was doubtless wasteful of human life. In 
the Campagna of Rome, as in many other parts, un¬ 
healthy influences must have been alway 

near at hand, and malaria had to be met was wasteful 
and combated. It was less dangerous when 
land was tilled and drained, and the constant experience 
and traditional remedies of the hardy natives enabled 
them to lessen or survive the evil. But slaves drawn 
from far-off countries, knowing nothing of the climate and 
its laws, guarded often by reckless task-masters and 
crowded in the unwholesome cells of the ergastula or 
work-houses, were less able to resist the ravages of 
pestilence, which spread faster as pasturage took the place 
of arable ground. For a time the loss of life was easily 
supplied from slave markets like those of Delos, where, 
as we read, fifty thousand human beings often changed 
owners in a single day; but they grew dearer as the 
boundaries of the Roman world included more subject 
races, and the voids were no longer easily or profitably 
filled up. 

4. The free population that had been driven from the 
fields betook themselves to the army or the city. The 
doles of corn, the frequent largesses, the 

. . 1 . . , , 4- Attraction 

shows and gaieties attracted to the crowded of town life 

streets and alleys thousands who were too agements to* 

indolent to work but not ashamed to beg, industry. 

and who could contribute nothing to the productive 

energies of the world. The country towns copied Rome 

as far as their means allowed, and attracted the idlers 


21-1 


The Earlier Empire . 


and improvident who lived upon the bounty of the rich. 
The veterans who had been sent out as colonists to set¬ 
tle in the deserted regions wearied often of the irksome 
restraint of the unwonted work, mortgaged or sold their 
little farms and.gradually came back to swell the num¬ 
bers of the dissolute and needy populace, and lived as 
paupers on the pittance of the state. 

5. To these causes must be added the untoward in¬ 
fluence of luxury, profligacy, and crime. Polybius noted 
the physical effects of the foreign customs 
of v? c fl e U and e that were spreading fast among the young 
profligacy. men t i ie ru p n g classes, and pointed to it 

as a symptom of decline. The moralists and satirists 
of later days were full of passionate complaints of the 
luxury which they saw around them. These rapid 
changes broke down the moral safeguards of the past 
and gave free vent to morbid appetites. The spread of 
ease and license discouraged honest industry and 
weakened hardihood and strength of body. The sumpu- 
ous mansions of the wealthy, the fish-ponds, bird-farms, 
and deer-parks which reared luxuries for Roman tables, 
absorbed unproductively the capital which might have 
maintained multitudes of thriving husbandmen and 
turned all Italy into a garden. The riches of the world 
had been poured into the coffers of the ruling classes, 
but with little benefit to their own country, which grew 
poorer, while large sums flowed yearly back to pay for 
the costly wares and delicacies of foreign lands. Pliny, 
as a patriot, laments the steady drain of money caused 
by the silks and jewels and spices of the East But 
moralists said less of what called for far severer censure. 
Infanticide was widely prevalent, sometimes in the form 
of the destruction of unborn life, but more commonly in 
the exposure of the newly-born. It rested with the 


Depopulation of Italy and G?'eece. 215 

father to decide if he would rear his child, and custom 
sanctioned the usage of exposure, though early laws had 
tried to limit it to monstrous births. The discretionary 
power was put in force most frequently in the case of 
female children, and passing references in literature 
show that they were often victims. Private charity some¬ 
times reared the foundlings, and the inscriptions bear 
witness to the number of such cases, and leave us to 
imagine how many were exposed. Polybius had speci¬ 
fied this among the causes of the dwindling numbers of 
the Greeks. Tacitus notes that the Germans looked 
upon the act as criminal; but he does so probably to 
point a moral, and is thinking of the vice of' Rome. 
Still the usage lasted on under the Empire, and the 
Christian Tertullian brands the heathen of his day with 
the infamy of the practice then continued. In the 
Eastern provinces the usage was less prevalent. Some¬ 
times religious sentiment discountenanced the practice, 
and often the spread of the industrial spirit and the 
vigor of productive energy gave a stimulus to the in¬ 
crease of numbers. Material well-being was diffused 
among the teeming populations of the commercial towns 
in Asia Minor, while the patriot mourned over increas¬ 
ing poverty in the western cities of the Empire, and the 
statesman had to recruit the legions from the nations 
most recently annexed. 


2 l6 


The Earlier Empire. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

THE FRONTIERS AND THE ARMY. 

The limits of the Roman world in the first century of the 
Empire were well defined by natural boundaries. It 
™ . . spread from the Atlantic on the west to the 

well defined, Euphrates on the east. The Rhine and the 

and accepted Danube formed its northern frontier; while 
by Augustus, ^he sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa parted 
it from peoples almost unknown. It had been the special 
work of Augustus to provide an effective barrier against 
the races of the North ; and at the cost of hard fighting, 
and after many dangerous campaigns, Pannonia, Nori- 
cum and Msesia were finally subdued and the Roman 
arms were carried to the Danube. Nearer home the 
tribes that held the passes of the Western Alps were 
crushed after obstinate resistance, and many thousands 
of them sold into hopeless slavery, that the great roads 
leading to Gaul might be secured In Germany tribe 
after tribe had been attacked, and Roman influence had 
been pushed forward to the Elbe; but the whole country 
rose in arms to crush Varus and his legions, and the 
boundary again receded to the Rhine. No attempt was 
made at conquest in the East. Even Armenia was left 
in seeming independence, and the captured standards of 
Crassus were recovered from the Parthians not by force 
but by diplomacy. Towards the south attempts were 
made to march into ^Ethiopia and Arabia Felix, but 
heat and drought alone were enough to baffle the intruders. 
Such were the frontiers finally accepted by Augustus, and 
recommended by him to his successors. In them, with 


217 


The Frontiers and the Army. 

one exception, no great change was made until the time 
of Trajan. But Britain, which had been only visited 
by Julius Caesar, was further attacked, explored, and 
finally subdued in a series of campaigns dating specially 
from the times of Claudius, Nero, and Domitian, and 
thus furnished a sort of training school for the best 
generals of the early Empire. It was part of the policy 
of Augustus to leave a fringe of dependent kingdoms in 
the countries most recently annexed, leav¬ 
ing the people for a while to the forms of T e P e . ndent 

, x 1 . kingdoms 

native rule, subject only to the payment of 
tribute or supply of soldiers. Of these the monarchy of 
the Herods furnished a well-known example, and many 
others are known in Syria, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Thrace, 
and Mauretania. But one after another, as kings died 
or dynasties decayed, these little kingdoms also disap¬ 
peared ; governors were sent to administer in Roman 
fashion, and the work of organizing went uniformly on. 
Diplomacy and intrigue also were constantly 
employed beyond the borders ; treaties were maticreia- 
formed with neighboring monarchs to give tlons ' 
an excuse for frequent meddling ; dynastic quarrels were 
fomented; shelter was offered to princely refugees, and 
future rulers trained in Roman arts and letters. This 
policy was specially employed in dealing with the chief¬ 
tains of the German clans and with the kings of the 
far East, and possible enemies were thus changed into 
friends or weak dependents. The early Caesars prided 
themselves upon the success of their diplomatic arts, 
took credit for it in their speeches to the Senate, and 
stamped in this way a pacific character upon ^ 
the policy of the Empire. For indeed, if policy of the 
we except the terrible crash of civil war in Empire ' 
the year 69, the peace of the Roman world was scarcely 


2 l8 


The Earlier Empire . 


broken for a century. A few border forays on the 
Rhine had their source in the wanton folly of weak rulers 
who thought to win a little glory upon easy terms. The 
Dacian war upon the Danube was left, after a few 
campaigns, for Trajan’s energy to close; the national 
uprisings in Gaul were crushed with little effort; and in 
their guerilla warfare with the African Tacfarinas the 
Roman generals were only pitted against a brigand chief, 
who had to be tracked and haunted like a wild beast to 
his lair. Only when opposed to the desperate energy of 
Jewish fanatics and jthe untamed tribes of Britain were 
they called upon to cope with enemies who seriously 
tasked the resources of generalship and discipline. For 
the most likely rivals of the Emperors were the leaders 
of their troops. Of these the most adventurous were 
recalled often in their hour of triumph or warned to 
advance no further, and must have sighed, like Corbulo, 
“ Happy were the generals of olden time ! ” for they 
were allowed to go on and conquer. 

Pacific as was the imperial policy of Augustus in his 
later years, he had for the first time set up a standing 
army, and the forms in which he organized 

The standing . J & . 

army of Au- it were long left undisturbed. On the Rhine 
th'e *s tat ions of eight legions were constantly on guard di¬ 
fleets' 51008 and y ided between the higher and the lower pio- 
vinces, and the defence of the northern 
frontier was further maintained by six more, who were 
siationed in Pannonia, Dalmatia, and Mrnsia. Four 
held the lines of the Euphrates, two were needed for the 
care of Egypt, the granary of Rome, while an equal 
number held the rest of Africa. Three more were kept 
in Spain, some of whose wilder tribes had been but 
lately brought into subjection. These legions, twenty- 
five in all, were attended in the field by auxiliary forces 


The Frontiers and the Army. 


219 


of about equal numbers, bearing the names and national 
character of the races that sent their separate contingents 
to the field. 

The chief stations for the fleets were at Misenum and 
Ravenna, on either coast of Italy, besides which the har¬ 
bor of the Colonia Forojuliensis (Frejus) was chosen by 
Augustus to receive some of the ships that fought at 
Actium. A few thousand men, nine cohorts of the 
praetorian guards, and three of the urban watch sufficed 
for the police of Rome ; and elsewhere through the 
whole interior of the vast dominion no garrisons were 
needed, and the tramp of armed men was seldom heard 
upon the great highways that ran through the old coun¬ 
tries of the Empire. 

The legions themselves were seldom moved from the 
frontiers to which they were attached, but remained in 
permanent encampments, engaged in an unvarying 
round of military drill. Near the cantonments settled 
the traders, camp followers, and various classes nearly 
connected with the soldiers, and many an important 
town of later days derived its origin, and sometimes 
even its name, from the camp in the close neighborhood 
of which it grew. The legions were recruited 
from the border provinces, often from the 
very countries where their camp was fixed. 

In time many ties connected the soldiers 
with the peoples amongst whom they lived. 

Most of them had never even seen Rome or the Empe¬ 
ror whom they served. How strong an influence was 
exerted by the Empire on the imaginations of the peo¬ 
ples, and how substantial were believed to be the benefits 
of union, is found in the fact that so few efforts were 
seriously made to assert a national independence and 
call the native soldiery to rally round it. For the temper 


The legions 
rec uited 
from the 
distant 
province^ 


220 


The Earlier Empire. 


we<-e loyal 
and steadfast, 
and attached 
by many ties 
to their 
camps. 


of the legions was in the main loyal and 
steadfast. The statues and effigies of the 
ruling monarch were commonly in the camp 
the objects of unquestioning reverence, and 
there at least Caesar-worship was something 
of a reality and not a name. The military traditions of 
each legion acquired of themselves an attractive force 
over the fancy of the soldiers, and provident clubs and 
guilds for social union grew up gradually among them, 
as we learn from inscriptions found in Algeria after the 
lapse of age5. They were also encouraged to deposit 
their savings in a sort of bank set up in their quarters, 
the funds of which were large enough to provide the 
needful means for the rising of Antonius against Do- 
mitian. 

The camps were also the best training-schools for the 
old-fashioned virtues of faithfulness, straightforwardness, 
and hardihood, and in them were to be 
qiuflides^ 1 found the best types of the old Roman cha- 
the campT by racter > which, as moralists complained, were 
to be found elsewhere no more. If the 
funds of a country town had fallen into disorder, or up¬ 
rightness was needed for a special post, the curator 
chosen by the government was often an old soldier, 
who had long been tried and trusted; and early Chris¬ 
tian history throws, incidentally, a favorable light upon 
the moral qualities of the Roman officer. Those quali¬ 
ties were mainly formed by thoroughness of work and 
discipline. 

Besides the mere routine of drill, and all the exercises 
of a soldier’s trade, the earthworks and intrenchments 
of the camp, there was no lack of constant 
labor. Their armies raised the great high¬ 
ways through miles of swamp and forest, spanned the 


work 


The Frontiers and the Army. 


221 


streams and bridges, built dykes and aqueducts and 
baths, and taught the border races as much of the arts 
of peace as of the methods and appliances of war. To 
save them from the monotony of garrison life and the 
temptations of unlettered leisure they had for the twenty 
years which was their minimum of service, a healthy 
variety of useful work to call out their energy and skill. 

The second requisite of discipline varied more with 
the temper of the general in command. It was a singu¬ 
lar feature of the first Caesar’s habits of command that 
he was careless of common rules, and al- , 

and discipline. 

lowed much license to his troops, saying that 
lf his men, perfumed as they were, could fight.” But 
his successors could not rely on the prestige of genius 
to inspire morale , nor quell their mutinous soldiers with 
a word, and they drew the bands of discipline more 
tightly. The greatest generals were commonly the 
strictest, and themselves set, like Corbulo and Agricola, 
a marked example to their men. The worst, like Vitel- 
lius in his few weeks of command upon the Rhine, were 
lax and careless, and rapidly demoralized their armies. 

Next to the generals the most important influence on 
the temper of the soldiers was that of the centurions, for 
they might be harsh and overbearing and sorely try the 
patience of the men below them. They might be venal 
and exacting, and allow some to buy discharge from the 
common duties of the camp, while unfairly burdening 
others. They might be quite incapable and owe their 
places to favor rather than to actual merit. 

Twice in the course of the period before us we have 
the spectacle of a complete breakdown of 
military discipline, and it is instructive to 
compare the facts of each The first followed 
close on the succession of Tiberius. Both 

Q 


Two exam¬ 
ples of the 
breakdown 
of discipline. 


222 


The Earlier Empire. 


on the Rhine and in Pannonia the soldiers were in 
open mutiny, incited seemingly by the men who had 
most lately joined the standards, recruited from the city 
populace after the fatal loss of Varus. The complaints 
put into their mouths are those of men who chafed at 
the stern drill of camp after the pleasures of the capital, 
who found the strictness of the centurions hard to bear, 
and looked forward with despair to twenty years of ser¬ 
vice, remembering the higher pay of the favored praeto¬ 
rians and their shorter term of years. The second was 
in the troublous year of 69, when so many rivals strug¬ 
gled for the post of honor. The armies had to assert 
their liberty of choice by naming each their Emperor, 
and the sources of discipline were thereby disturbed, 
while the drill and work of stationary quarters were sud¬ 
denly exchanged for the license and the plunder of cam¬ 
paigns. They constantly broke out in mutiny against 
their leaders, and complained that the centurions were 
harsh or cruel ; and twice when they had made an Em¬ 
peror they would not be denied the privilege of choosing 
all their officers at their caprice. 

But these were the rare exceptions of exciting times, 
and the legions commonly were loyal, and the Emperors, 
careful of their welfare. They rarely received, indeed, 

. the donative which the guards of the capi- 

1 he pay and ° 1 

pensions of tal could almost extort at the accession of 

the soldiers a ru j er . but besides t h e which was in 
itself a great burden on the imperial revenue, a special 
fund was formed in a sort of military chest to furnish 
pensions for the veterans who were discharged, and new 
sources of income were devised to meet the need in the 
form of a succession duty of five per cent, and of certain 
tolls levied in the markets. After the civil wars it had 
been common to plant military colonies, and to find land 


223 


Moral Standard of the Age. 

for all the veterans. But it was found in time that they 
were sorry settlers and little suited to field-work, and the 
land passed speedily out of their hands. 

The system of pensions was, therefore, 
adopted in its stead. One further privilege 
we hear of, though only from the evidence of inscrip¬ 
tions graven on metal tablets found in various lands. 
They are the certified copies of the official document in 
which an honorable discharge was granted to deserving 
soldiers after the full term of service. It carried with it 
the full franchise to the provincials who filled the legions, 
and gave a Roman status to the worthy, as the Em¬ 
peror’s favor or a master’s whim did to large numbers 
of a different class. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


THE MORAL STANDARD OF THE AGE. 

If we think only of the most familiar of the social fea¬ 
tures of this period we may well form a low estimate of 
its moral worth, and say with Horace that 
the men of his day were worse than the Jn5”ncytobe- 
generation that had gone before, and were lieve that there 

... .. was a moral 

to be followed by an age still viler. 1 he decline in the 
fearful spectacles of vice seated in high fh^Empireu ° f 
places with the Caesars : the sombre pages 
in which Tacitus portrays the selfish, cowardly, and 
luxurious nobles, vieing with each other in their praises 
of the rulers who were slaughtering them meantime as 
sheep ; the passionate invectives of Juvenal, which im¬ 
ply that modesty and truth and honor had winged their 



224 


The Earlier Empire. 


flight to other worlds, and left the Roman in disgust to 
men without dignity and women without shame ; the 
epigrams of Martial, which reveal the gross profligacy 
of the social circles which they were written to amuse ; 
the novels of Petronius and Apuleius, reflecting the lewd¬ 
ness and the baseness of every class in turn ; and, 
weightiest witness of them all, the terrible indictment of 
the heathen world in the letters of St. Paul—these and 
other literary evidences are often thought enough to 
prove a moral decline in the early ages of the Empire. 
They may be also thought to show the demoralizing in¬ 
fluence of despotism on men who in early days would 
have spent their lives in the public service, but who* 
losing their self-respect when freedom failed, turned to 
material pleasures to fill the void which politics had left. 
But before we accept such sweeping charges there are 
some pleas that may be urged, and should be weighed, 
in favor of a somewhat different conclusion. Satire can 
_ , never be accepted as a fair portraiture of 

But (i) satire . r * 

is not fair evi- social manners. It dwells only on the bad 
dcricc • • • • 

side of life, and ignores the brighter and 
the nobler scenes. It may be, though it rarely is, ac¬ 
curate and exact in what it says, but good and evil are 
so blended in all our motives, thoughts, and actions that 
the pen which draws only the evil out to view must 
needs distort and falsify all the complexities of our 
human life. Or if it tries, as it sometimes does, to paint 
the fairer scenes as a contrast to the darker, it isolates 
and overcolors, and so destroys the naturalness of both 
alike, as when the Roman writers found a foil for the 
vices of the city in the healthy simplicity of country life, 
of ancient manners or of barbarous peoples. But satire 
may be taken to show a more searching spirit of inquiry 
a keener sense of the follies and vices of the age, a social 


Mordi Standard of the Age. 225 

unrest and discontent which point to a higher moral 
standaid and may be the prelude to reform. 

Juvenal himself, from whom our popular es- too^vehement 5 
timate is mostly taken, was too vehement to t0 befair ' 
be accurate and fair. Soured, seemingly, by neglect and 
disappointment, struggling with poverty, though con- 
scious of high talents, he fiercely declaims against the 
world that could not recognize his merits, and he is not 
very careful of justice or consistency. Each public 
scandal of the times, the profligate woman, the lewd 
paramour, the insolent upstart, the wealthy rogue, the 
pampered favorite of fortune, become at once the types 
of classes, and are so generalized as to cover almost all 
the society of Rome. 

Nor must it be forgotten that most of the literary evi¬ 
dences before us—satirists, historians, and 
moralists alike—reflect the life of a great 3- Literature 

. , deals with 

city, and tell us little of the average morality Roman life, 
of the Roman world. It was in that city 
that the Caesars paraded visibly the foul examples of 
their insolent license, and the temper of the court gave 
the tone to the social fashions of the capital. It was 
there that degradation entered into the soul of the high¬ 
born, and drove them to forget the cares and shame of 
public life in the refinements of mere self-indulgence. 
It was there that the great extremes of poverty and 
wealth lived side by side with the least sense of mutual 
duty and mutual respect. The great fortunes of the 
world came to the centre of fashion to be spent, while 
the proletariat lived upon its public pittance or scram¬ 
bled for their patrons’ dole. It was there that the old 
moral safeguards of local religion, public sentiment, and 
national feeling had been most completely broken down 
in a motley aggregate of people to which every race had 


226 


The Earlier Empire. 


sent its quota. It was there that slavery reacted with 
most fatal force upon the temper of the master, and 
through the multitude of freedmcn stamped upon the 
city populace the characteristic vices of the slave. 

In such a capital there was no lack of material for 
satire, and earnest minds were justified, perhaps, in 
thinking that the inhabitants of Rome had never been 
so idle, dissolute, and corrupt. Politics had dwindled to 
the scandals of court gossip, and the sterner game of 
war, with its hardy virtues and its self-denial, had passed 
into the hands of provincials far away. The craving for 
fierce excitement might be sated by the sport with 
the wild beasts, and the poor gladiators might fight 
and bleed to show the Romans how their forefathers 
had died. But there was much in the life of the great 
city that was exceptionally morbid, and we surely 
must be careful before we generalize what we read 
about it. 

The satirists of the Empire dwell with special force 
upon the increase of luxury in their time, and the spread 
of peace and of material ease caused without doubt a 
larger outlay on all sides. But the luxuries of one age 
seem the necessaries of the next. Civilized 

aboutTu^ury 3 P r °g ress consists largely in changing and 
need to be multiplying our common wants, the moral 

carefully • 

weighed. estimate of which varies with the standard 
of the times. If the animal nature is not 
pampered at the expense of the moral character and 
high thought, if the few do not unproductively consume 
the produce of the work of thousands, the moralist need 
not quarrel with the enlargement of our human needs, 
which of itself becomes a spur to quickened industry. 
But some of the complaints in question deal with matters 
of passing sentiment and prejudice, with entirely con- 


Moral Standard of the Age. 227 

ventional habits of dress and food and furniture, and 
their strictures on these points sound meaningless to 
modern ears. Even the things we look upon as the real 
gains of progress, such as the interchange of natural 
products, the suiting to fresh soils and climates the 
growth of widely different lands, they stigmatized as the 
vanity of an insane ambition that would overleap the 
bounds of nature. Much of what seemed to them luxu¬ 
rious excess would be now taken as a matter of course, 
and was only thought extravagant because of the sim¬ 
pler habits of a Southern race, which had a lower stand¬ 
ard for its wants. For if we go into details there is little 
that exceeds or even rivals the expenditure of later 
times, unless, perhaps, we may except the prices given 
for works of fine art, or the passion for building, which, 
for a time, seized the Roman nobles, or eccentricities 
of morbid fancy as rare as they were portentous. Wealth 
was confined, indeed, within few hands; but in the towns 
at least they spent largely for what they thought the 
common good, and baths and aqueducts, roads and 
temples were works to benefit the million. Culpable 
luxury, indeed, there was—selfish extravagance and idle 
waste—but every age has seen the same in all the great 
cities of the world. It is fair also to remember that the 
first century of the Empire had not passed away before 
a change is noticed for the better. We read in Tacitus 
that Vespasian’s frugal habits had a lasting influence on 
the tone of Roman fashion. From his days he dates the 
spread of homelier ways, in which men followed the ex¬ 
ample of the court, while the provincials, from whom 
the Senate was largely recruited at the time, brought to 
the capital the inexpensive forms of simpler life. With 
these reserves we may accept the statements of the an¬ 
cient writers for some at least of the social features of 


228 


The Earlier Empire. 


imperial Rome, for the vices and the follies which they 
paint in such dark colors. 

But there is another side to be considered before a 


conclusion can be drawn. 

Philosophy had now become, for the first time in Ro¬ 
man history, a real power in common life, and where 
Christian influences were unknown it was 
became° S ° phy the nioral teacher of mankind. With 
a great moral Cicero it had given an uncertain sound, as 
if to excuse his own irresolute temper; it had 
furnished questions of interest for curious scholars, but 
no guiding star for earnest seekers. But in the mouths 
of the great teachers of the Stoic system it was very 
resolute and stern. It pointed to a higher standard than 
the will of any living Caesar; it taught men to live with 
self-respect and to face death with calm composure. It 
had dropped its airs of paradox and the subtleties of 
nice disputes to become intensely practical and moral, 
to lead men in the path of duty, and give them light in 
hours of darkness. It is easy, indeed, to 
Seneca 36 ° f point to the inconsistencies of a career like 
that of Seneca, to the moralist defending 
the worst act of his royal pupil, to the rich man writing 
specious phrases in favor of homely poverty, to the 
ascetic training of the hard wallet amid all the splendors 
of the palace, like the hair shirt of the middle ages 
covered by the prelate’s robe. But Seneca found 
strength and solace in the lessons of philosophy ; the 
greatness of his life begins when honors and court favor 
fail him, and he retires to meditate on the real goods of 
life and the great principles of duty. There, with a little 
company of chosen spirits, he can consult the books of 
the undying dead, and tranquilly reason on the expe¬ 
rience of the past and the problems of man’s destiny. 


Moral Standard of the Age. 229 

Not content with the mere selfish object of saving his 
own soul, he gives his ear and earnest thoughts to the 
needs of other seekers round him, writes as the director 
of their conscience while they live still in the busy world, 
and tells them how to keep a brave and quiet heart 
among the trials of those evil days. The pages in which 
Tacitus describes the last hours of Seneca and many an¬ 
other death-bed scene; the marked way in which he 
comments on the worldly levity of Petronius, who had 
no sage near him when he died; the jealous suspicions 
of the Emperors, the writings of the moralists themselves, 
show that philosophy was a real power in the state, and 
not confined to a few thinkers. Nor was it at Rome, as 
in the old days of Greece, a Babel of discordant voices 
distracting serious inquirers by their disputes and con¬ 
tradictions. The Stoic system ruled at Rome for a time 
almost without a rival. The themes on which it reasoned 
were chiefly moral; and hard and cold as we may think 
its teaching, it roused enthusiasm in those who heard it, 
and spread widely through the world. It had its spiritual 
advisers for the closets of the great, its public lecturers 
for the middle classes of the towns, its ardent missiona¬ 
ries who spread the creed among the masses, and 
preached in season and out of season too. Its popu¬ 
larity was a real sign of moral progress, for all its influ¬ 
ence was exerted to counteract the real evils of the 
times. It placed its ideals of the wise and good far above 
the example of the Caesars, its thoughts of a ruling 
Providence above the deified despots of an official wor¬ 
ship. It met the gross materialism of a luxurious age 
by its lessons of hardihood and self-restraint. It made 
light of the accidents of nationality and rank, insisting 
chiefly on the rights of conscience and the dignity of 
manhood, and left us works that are of interest still in a 


230 


The Earlier Empire. 


literature in which the two most familiar names are one 
of an Emperor, the other of a slave. To correspond to in¬ 
fluences such as these we may trace some changes in 
the tone of public thought. For foul and base as was 
so much in that old heathen world, which seemed to 
Christian eyes so hopelessly corrupt, yet were there 
elements of progress, and earnest cries for clearer light, 
and a feeling after better things, for God had not left Him¬ 
self without a witness in the midst of sensuality and sin. 

In regard to slavery men speak and act with far more 
of real humanity. We need not insist, indeed, upon the 
, , passionate terms in which Juvenal brands 

6. I he change x . J 

of tone and the brutality of selfish masters, and pleads 

subject*^ 11 the for the human rights of the poor sufferers, 

slavery, nor on t ] ie i an g lia g e j n which the kindly- 

hearted Pliny speaks of the members of his household. 
But even at the beginning of the Empire it became a 
growing custom to give freedom soon to the domestic 
slaves, and the fashion spread so fast as to require to be 
checked and ruled by law. The wording of the epi- 
tanhs, the common literary tone, shows the rapid growth 
of kindlier feeling ; and the enforcement of the stern 
old law by which the slaves of a murdered master were 
all condemned to death caused a cry of horror through 
the city, and the fear of a rescue from the crowd. Other 
suffering causes found a voice also in Roman 
evils 0ther circles. Protests were heard against the 
cruel sports of the arena and the demoraliz¬ 
ing sight of needless bloodshed ; the wrongs of the pro¬ 
vincials were pleaded, not as a matter of prudence or 
of party politics, as by the orators of the Republic, but 
in the interests of humanity and order. 

The estimate of women’s character was changing 
also. They had always, indeed, been treated with high 



Moral Standard of the Age. 


231 


regard, and had managed their households 

with dignity and self-respect. They had J n the esUmafe 

been clothed with public functions as priest- °/’ women ’ s 

r r character. 

esses and Vestal Virgins, and had already 
gained by forms of law a kind of independent status. 
But the received type was somewhat severe and stern, 
with little of the grace and accomplishment of finer cul¬ 
ture. “To stay at home to spin the wool’’was their 
merit in their husbands’ eyes ; and in the later years of 
the Republic moralists spoke with grave alarm of the 
gayer moods and freer tone imported with the latest 
fashions, and feared to see their wives copy the ques¬ 
tionable society of Greece. Without doubt there were 
many who, like the Sempronia and the Claudia of the 
days of Cicero, aimed more at attractiveness than virtue, 
and too wantonly paraded their freedom from old- 
fashioned notions ; there were many in the early Empire 
who flung themselves without reserve into every kind of 
dissipation, and linked their names to infamy in the 
revels of the court of Nero. But it was found in time 
that grace and art need be no bar to chaste decorum, 
that women could be learned without being pedants, and 
study philosophy without affectation. At no time do we 
read of nobler women than in the days when satire 
handled them so coarsely; and, sad as are the histories 
of Tacitus, he has yet bright and stirring pages where he 
embalms the memory of a band of heroines who could 
sympathize with their husbands’ highest thoughts, and 
sometimes even show them how to die. In earlier days 
there had been Roman matrons as dignified and chaste 
and brave, but the fuller blossoming of womanhood and 
a more many-sided grace were the growth of an age 
which we regard, at the first, as hopelessly corrupt and 
vile. 


23 2 


The Earlier Empire. 


In fine, there is one witness we may cross-examine if 
we will gauge the moral temper of the times. The 
younger Pliny lived partly in the period be¬ 
fore us and partly also in the next. He was 
no professional moralist, and had no thesis 
to maintain, but his familiar letters reflect 
the spirit of the circles, in which he moved, of the high¬ 
est society in Rome. He owns, indeed, that he takes a 
kindly view of things about him, that he sees the merits 
rather than the foibles of his friends ; and the habit of 
drawing-room recitals tended perhaps, with certain 
classes, to form a tone of mutual admiration. Yet withal 
it is a most impressive contrast to the pictures of the sa¬ 
tirist, and points to a real progress in the temper of the 
age. The society that could furnish so many worthy 
types of character, so many friends to sympathize with 
the genial refinement, the courtesy and tenderness ex¬ 
pressed in Pliny’s letters, had many an element of no¬ 
bleness and strength to retard the process of decay. 


8. The evi¬ 
dence of a 
higher tone 
in Pliny’s 
letters. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE REVIVAL OF RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 


Towards the end of the Republic religious sentiment 
seemed to have almost lost its hold on the world of 


fashion and of letters. The legends bor¬ 
rowed long ago with the arts and poetry of 
Greece had never flourished upon Roman 
soil. The product of a people’s childlike 
thought, they could have little charm for 
colder minds in a later stage of national growth, and 


Religion 
seemed to be 
losing its 
hold on the 
Romans of 
education. 



The Revival of Religious Sen/i?nent. 233 

Greek philosophy helped to destroy what Greek fancy 
had created. 

Cicero and others of his time prized the honors of the 
priesthood, observed the forms of national worship, 
thought them useful for the masses, but cared little for 
its hopes or fears, and in familiar correspondence they 
seldom speak of it at all. It was part of the 
policy of Augustus to do honor to the na- Au^stus to° f 
tional religion, and to strengthen his own r^iigfoii the 
imperial dynasty by a sort of closer union 
between Church and State. He had shown little piety 
in earlier days, and was said even to have taken part in 
a blasphemous parody of an Olympian banquet. But 
now at his bidding the temples 'rose on all sides from 
their ruins, the ancient rites were celebrated with a mag¬ 
nificence long disused, and he became himself the 
highest functionary of the old religion. His successors 
were careful to follow in his steps, and the members of 
the Flavian family, though they sought 
seemingly a sort of consecration from the ^^reacti^n 7 
priests and soothsayers of the East, did not [races dUnng 
on that account neglect the worship of their 
fathers. Did religion really gain from this official sanc¬ 
tion ? We cannot tell, but we do see enduring traces 
of reviving faith. 

1. It is true that we still hear caustic jibes at the 
old myths, and Juvenal tells us that none but children 
believe the legends of the poets; but it was , 

1 . 1 rm legends 

possible to give them up Without much loss might be given 
of reverence and faith. They had never had To^of^di- 
much hold upon the Latin mind, whose glous folth ’ 
earlier creed was one of simple naturalism, or deak with 
the abstractions of pure thought rather than with forms 
of personifying fancy. The venerable hymns and rituals 


234 


The Earlier Empire. 


still appealed to the devotion of the people and did not 
shock the inquiring reason. Polytheism is naturally so 
loose and undogmatic in its creeds that all were free 
to choose the elements that satisfied their thought or in¬ 
clination, and none were driven into unbelief by the 
sweeping claims and threats of an intolerant priest¬ 
hood. 

2. There is this also to be noted, that the current 
philosophy of the early Empire was not revolutionary 

and flippant, as it often had been in the 

2. The tone 1 v . 

ofphiloso- schools of Greece. It did not encourage a 
earnest and balance and suspense of judgment, like the 
devout. academic thought of Cicero, but was in the 

mouths of Stoic doctors grave and earnest and devout, 
leaving men to ponder on the great problems of life and 
to justify the ways of Providence. It saw elements of 
truth in all religious forms and languages, and could find 
even in poetic fancies many a valuable symbol of the 
unseen world of faith and duty. It was soon to be more 
tolerant and comprehensive still, to harmonize all creeds 
and systems, with one great exception, and by the help 
of mystic reveries and allegory to breathe a new spirit 
into the worn-out forms of paganism and to do battle 
only with the Christian faith. 

3. Meantime the peaceful union of the nations 
brought with it an interchange and fusion of devotional 

rites, and the gates of Rome could not be 
long closed against the strange deities that 
claimed the rites of citizenship and a niche in 
the imperial Pantheon. The Senate and 
magistrates of the Republic had more than once tried in 
vain to close the portals, and now the attempt was 
wholly given up, as new fashions in religion flocked from 
every land to find a home within the city. Sometimes it 


3. The intro¬ 
duction of 
new c-eeds 
and rites. 


The Revival of Religious Sentiment. 


2 35 


seemed little more than a mere change of name, when 
attributes and ceremonies were like those of home- 
growth ; but it was far otherwise with the Eastern Mithras 
and Astarte, the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, the strange 
rites of the Corybants, and the mystic orgies of Cotytto. 
These helped to naturalise new thoughts and feelings on 
Italian soil,—religious moods that passed from mysteri¬ 
ous gloom to enthusiastic fervor, the idea of penitence 
and ascetic self-devotion as the condition of a higher 
life and of closer union with the Divine. They answered 
seemingly to some deep-seated cravings that had not 
been satisfied elsewhere ; they spread rapidly and became 
quite a power in social life without disturbing the existing 
faiths, for the old and new lived peacefully together side 
by side, as saints newly canonized may take their place 
without prejudice to other venerable names. Under 
such influences the belief in a world unseen grows in 
intensity and earnestness ; dreams and omens of all 
kinds have power to stir the credulous fancy; sooth¬ 
sayers, astrologers, and diviners reap their golden har¬ 
vests and meet a widespread want. 

4. The literary tone, which a century before had been 
worldlv, sceptical, and careless, becomes 

" 1 4. 1 he change 

earnest and oftentimes devout; and familiar in the literary 

letters show that religion was with most a tonc ' 
matter of serious concern and a real motive-force in ac¬ 
tion. Among the historians Tacitus shows some recog¬ 
nition of the Divine Power that guides the world, and the 
will that sends its signs to warn us. Suetonius and Dion 
Cassius indicate the progressive fulness of belief, and 
weary us often with their long detail of constantly re¬ 
curring portents. In other writers there is much talk of 
a spirit-world of ghostly visitors who go and come in 
startling guise and haunt the homes of murdered men, 


236 


The Ea?'lier Empire. 


They believe seemingly in the power of magic to con¬ 
strain the forces of the unseen world, and make them 
use a fatal influence on the souls and bodies of the 
living. Numberless gradations are imagined between 
the infinite God and finite man, till all the universe is 
peopled with an endless hierarchy of supernatural 
agents. 

5. We have another source of evidence of the extent 
of popular belief in the numerous inscriptions which en¬ 
shrine many of the most cherished feelings 
mental™ of every social class and race. They point 
evidence. t0 t j ie coim tless thank-offerings that grateful 
piety had yet to give. Temples, altars, votive tablets 
were set up for centuries by pagan hands; statues and 
pictures of the gods were still the objects of religious 
veneration ; the worship of domestic lares or the ancestral 
spirits of the house leaves its trace on every monumental 
stone. The epitaphs attest in every variety of tone the hopes 
and fears of a life beyond the grave, and the yearning 
sympathy of those still left behind. Even the old fancies 
of the poets, the legendary forms of Charon. Cerberus, 
and Pluto, linger still in popular memory and leave their 
trace in the language of the tombs. Many of the popu¬ 
lar beliefs were strong enough to resist for ages the 
spread of Christian thought. Even when they seemed 
to yield they only changed their language and their 
symbols, and noiselessly maintained their ground in the 
service of devotional art. 

For when the final struggle came the religions of 
paganism died hard. With the early Empire a strong 
reaction had set in, growing constantly in 
died a hard. intensity from the greater spiritual depth of 
Eastern creeds and from the mystical and 
moralizing tone of philosophic thought. 


I N D EX. 


A CTA of the Senate,i98 
-tx Acte, 127 
Actium, battle of, 5 
Aidiles, 15 
Africa, 212, 216, 218 
Agrestis, Julius, 145 
Agricola, Julius, 178, 221 
Agrippa, Herod, 149 

•-M. Vipsanius, 10, 23, 26 

39 

-Postumus, 31 

Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, 
55 , 63 

-daughter of Germanicus, 

72, 99, 105, 109, 128 
Alexandria, 5, 83, 150, 158, 209 
ship’s crew of 38 ; club at 87 
Ancyranum monumentum, 40 
Anicetus, 109, no 
Antioch, 55 
Antium, 83, 113 
Antonia, 66, 75, 85 
Antonius, M., 2-5, 42, 153 

-Primus, 143, 145, 149 

-S., 176, 220 

Apollonia, 1 

Apollonius of Tyana, 178 
Apotheosis 44 
Apuleius, 224 
Aquileia, 149 
Archon, title of, 191 
Aricia, 186 
Armenia, 125, 216 
Arminius, 54 
Arretium, 26 
Arria, 118 
Asiaticus, 142 
Asinius Gallus, 65 
Astarte, 235 
Atellan farces, 203 
Atticus, Pomponius, 204 ; daughter 
of, 25 

Augusta, title of 51 


Augustales, 207 

Augustus, 1-44, 102 ; title of, 12 


B AI^E, 109, 113, 192 ; bridge at 
77 

Barea Soranus, 120 
Bassus Lucilius, 143 
Batavi, 151 

Bedriacum, 137, 141, 144 
Berenice, 149, 163, 164 
Boadicea, 125 
Britain, 178, 207 
Britannicus, 100, 105, no, 162 
Brixellum, 137 
Brutus, 3, 8, 9, 187 
Burrhus, 105, 117 


C ^ECINA ALIENUS, 136, 137, 

140 

Caenis, 158 

Caesar, Julius, 1; title of, 12 
Caesonia, 79, 84 
Caledonia, 179 
Caligula, 30, 69, 74-84 
Callistus, 92 
Camillus 91 
Cama odunum, 125 
Campagna of Rome, 213 
Candidati Caesaris, 16 
Capreae, 64, 68 
Cappadocia, 217 
Cassius, C., 3 

-Chaerea, 84, 93 

Cassius Severus, 37 
Cato the elder, 57 

-M. Porcius, 187 

Censoria potestas, 15 
Cerealis, 172 
Chaerea v. Cassius 


R 


237 










2 3 8 


Index . 


Christians, 116, 187 
Chrysippus, 118 
Cicero, 2, *07, 228, 231 
Cilicia, 217 
Cilnius Msecenas, 26 
Civilis,i5i, 152 
Claudia, 231 
Claudius, 84-103 
Cleopatra, 5, 42 
Colonia Forojuliensis, 219 
Colonise, 191 
Consularis potestas, 14 
Corbulo, 120, 218, 221 
Corduba, 105 

Corinth, 204, isthmus of, 78 
Cornutus, 118 
Corybants 235 
Cotytto, 235 
Crassus, 45, 204 
Cremona, 144, 150 
Cremutius Cordus, 61 


D acians, 150, 175, 218 

Dalmatia, 137, 218 
Danube, 216 
Decebalus, 175 
Decuriones, 194 
Delatores, 57 
Delos, 213 

Demarch, title of, 191 
Demetrius, 159 
Dictator, title of, 11 
Diogenes, 162 

Dion Cassius, 10, 30, 70, in, 168, 
211, 235 

-Chrysostom, 201 

Domitian, 146, 150, 171-4 
Domitius Afer, 78 

■-Ahenobarbus, 99, 104 

-Nero, 99 

Druids, 188 

Drusus, brother of Tiberius, 31 g 

-son of Tiberius, 62 

Duumviri juri dicundo, 194 


E gypt, 5,191,218 

Elbe, 216 
Epictetus, 200 
Epponina, 160 
Euphrates, 218 

F ABIUS, PICTOR, 203 
_ Felix, 02, 154 
Flavian amphitheatre, 164 

-Sabinus, 145 

Forojuliensis colonia, 219 


G ALBA, 125, 128, 134 
Gallia comata, 186 
Germanicus, 48, 49, 54 
Germany, wars in, 175 
Gessius Florus, 154 
Gracchi, policy of, 17; laws of 175, 
Caius Gracchus, 186, 189,210 
Greece, depopulation of, 209 


H ELVIDIUS PRISCUS, 

165 

Helvetia, 136 
Herculaneum, 170, 171 
Hiero, 191 
Horace, 28 


160, 


TCELUS,i 3 i 
_L Illyria, 149 
Imperator, title of, 12 
Isis, 42, 235 


J ERUSALEM, siege of, 154 
Jews, 153, 154, 187 
Josephus, 70, 155, 200 
Julia, daughter of Augustus, 25, 31 
grand-daughter, 33, 37 
Julius Agrestis, 145 

-Agricola, 178 

-Caesar, 1 

-Sabinus, 160 

Jus privatum, 185; honorum, 185, 
exilii, 185 

Juvenal, 179, 192, 223, 225, 230 


L ABIENUS, T., 37, 76 

Laco, Cornelius, 67, 131 
Lares, worship of, 43 
Latin right, 191 

Leges: Papia Poppaea, 36, 2105 
Majestatis, 37,186; Julia muni, 
cipalis, 193 ; Salpensana, 193; Ma, 
lacitana, 193 
Lepida, 104, 116 
Lepidus, 3 
Lesbos 25 
Lingones155,160 
Livia, 21, 29-31, 48, 63 
Livilla, 63 

Livia, 79, 87,203, 210 
Locusta, 101, 109 











Index. 


2 39 


Lollia, ioo 
Lollius, 34 
Londinium, 125 
Lucan,121-125, 187 
Lucilius Bassus, 144 
Lucrine Lake, 24, 92 
Lucullus, gardens of, 98 
Lugdunum, 102, 172 
Lusitania, 135 


M AECENAS, 9, [10, 26-29; gar¬ 
dens of, 47 
Macro, 66, 69, 75 
Marcella, 25 
Marcellus, M., 25, 30 
Marcomanni, 176 
Martial, 179, 192, 198,224 
Massilia, 186 
Mauretania, 217 
Messalina, 97, 106, 139 
Misenum, 168, 218 
Mithras, 235 
Mithridates, 24 
Moesia, 143, 216, 218 
Mucianus, 149, 150, 172 
Municipia, 191 
Museum at Naples, 171 
Musonins Rufus, 146 
Mutina, 3, 7 


N aples, 39, 192 

Narcissus, 90, 99, 101, 104, 
148 

Nemausus, 46 
Nero, 104-128 
Nola, 39 
Noricum, 216 
Nursia, 7 

O CTAVIA, sister of Octavius, 4; 
daughter of Claudius 100, 
104, 116 

Octavius, 1; Octavianus, 4-10 
Osiris, 42, 1*24 

Otho, 115, 132, 133, iS'W 8 * 2 °4 
Ovid, 28, 27 


P ADUS, 141 

Paetus Thrasea, 118 
Palestine, 150 
Pallas, 91, 99, 108 
Pannonia, 24,47, *37> T 43 > x 7 6 > 2i6 > 
218,221 

Papia Poppaea Lex, 36, 211 
Parthia, king of, 74, 173 


Paul, St., 186, 223 

Paulina, 121 

Perusia, siege of, 4,24 

Petronius Arbiter, 123-124, 200, 223, 

228 

Phaon, 126 
Philippi, battle of, 3 
Philo, 70, 200 
Philostratus, 178 
Phoebe 33 
Piso, Cn., 55 

-Cn., 123, 124 

-Frugi Licinianus, 132-134 

-Frugi, 189 

Planasia, 31 
Plancina, 55 

Pliny the elder, 26, 168, 203/210, 
215 ; the younger, 168, 225, 231 
Plutarch, 200, 211 
Pollux, shrine of, 77 
Polybius, the freedman, 92, 98 

-the historian, 210, 214 

Pompeii, 72, 125, 168,170,193 
Pompeius Magnus, 7, 153 

-Sextus, 4, 27 

Pomponius Atticus, 204 
Pontifex Maximus, office of, 14 
Pontus, 24 

Poor Law System at Rome, 189 
Poppaea Sabina, 117, 119, 125, 135, 
Posides, 92 

Praefectus, 17; urbi, 17; praetorio, 
vigilum, annonae, 17 
Praetor, 15 

Primus, Antonius, 143, 144, 146,149 

Prince, title of, 14 

Privy council, 19 

Proconsularis potestas, 15 

Procuratores, 17 

Proscriptions, 3 

Propertius 28 

Ptolemy, 191 

Punic wars, 212 

Puteoli, 38 ; bridge at, 77 

Pythagoras, 115 


Q uaestor, 15 

Quattuor, viri juri dicundo, 194 
Quinquennales, 194 
Quintilius Varus, 34, 211, 221 


R avenna, 143,218 

Reate, 147 
Remi (Rheims), 191 
Rhodes, 45, 186, 204 
Rusticus, 177 





240 


Index , 


S ABINUS FLAVIUS, 145, M7 

Scribonia, 32 
Sejanus, 62-67 
Sempronia, 231 
Sempronian laws, 186 
Senate under Augustus, 18 
Senatorial provinces, 20 
Seneca, 29, 78, 104, 105, no, 228 
satire of, 101 
Senecio, 177 
Sequani, 160 
Servilia, 121 
Sextus Pompeius, 4, 27 
Silanus, 54 
Silius, 98 

Simon, son of Gioras, 156 
Soranus Barea, 121 
Spain, 192, 218 
Sporus, 115, 125 
Stabise, 169 
Statius, 179, 192 
Stoics, 117, 174, 227, 233 
Strabo, 70, 200, 209, 2x0 
Suburra, 192 
Suetonius, 70, 71, 92, 235 
Sulla, 10, 53, 189 
Sulpicius Galba, 125, 128-134 
Syria, 125, 149, 154 


T acitus, 70, n6,134,138,149, 

153, 178, 180, 186, 200, 214, 
223,227,228,231,235 
Tacfarinas, 218 
Terentia, 29 
Tertullian, 215 
Teutoburgiensis saltus,j35 
Thebaid of Statius, 179 
Thebes, 219 
Thespise, 210 
Thrace, 217 

Thrasea, 111, 119 121,160 
Thr-asyllus, 47 


Tiberius, the emperor, 44-180; me¬ 
moirs of, 179 
Tiberius Gemellus, 78 
Tibullus, 28 
Tibur, 186 

Tigellinus, 115, 124, 125, 133 
Tigranes, 45 
Tiri dates, 120 

Titus, 148, 149, 154, 162-171; baths 

of, 164 
Tomi, 38 
Treviri, 151 
Tribunicia potestas, 12 
Trimalchio, 124 
Tyana, 178 


"j^JMBRIA, 147 


V ALENS, F., 136, 140 
Valerius Asiaticus, 98 
Valerius Maximus, 71 
Varus Quintilius, 34, 211, *21 
Vatinius, 115 
Velleius Paterculus, 48, 71 
Vergil, 18, 30 
Verginius Rufus, 126, 130 
Verona, 143 

Vespasian, 112, 137, 143, 147-162 
227 

Vesuvius, 125, 168 
Vibius Crispus, 172 
Vindex, 125, 128 
Vinius, 131 
Visurgis, 35 

Vitellius, A., 134, 136, 139-147, 172 
201, 22 x 
-L., 139 

ENODORUS, 104 





EPOCHS OF HISTORY 


44 A Series of concise and carefully prepared volumes on special 
eras of history. Each is devoted to a group of events of such 
importance as to entitle it to be regarded as an epoch. Each 
is also complete in itself, and has no especial connection with 
the other members of the series. The works are all written 
by authors selected by the editor on account of some especial 
qualifications for a portrayal of the period they respectively 
describe. The volumes form an excellent collection, especially 
adapted to the wants of a general reader.”— CHARLES KENDALL 
ADAMS, President of Cornell University. 

4,1 The * Epochs of History ’ seem to me to have been prepared with 
knowledge and artistic skill to meet the wants of a large number 
of readers. To the young they furnish an outline or compen¬ 
dium which may serve as an introduction to more extended 
study. To those who are older they present a convenient sketch 
of the heads of the knowledge which they have already acquired. 
The outlines are by no means destitute of spirit, and may be 
used with great profit for family reading, and in select classes 
or reading clubs.”— NOAH PORTER, President of Yale College. 

41 It appears to me that the idea of Morris in his Epochs is strictly 
in harmony with the philosophy of history—namely, that 
great movements should be treated not according to narrow 
geographical and national limits and distinction, but uni¬ 
versally, according to their place in the general life of the 
world. The historical Maps and the copious Indices are 
welcome additions to the volumes.”— Bishop JOHN F. HURST, 
Ex-President of Drew Theological Seminary. 

44 The volumes contain the ripe results of the studies of men who 
are authorities in their respective fields.”— The Nation. 

“To be appreciated they must be read in their entirety; and we 
do no more than simple justice in commending them earnestly 
to the favor of the studious public.”— The New York World. 

The great success of the series is the best proof of its general 
popularity, and the excellence of the various volumes is further 
attested by their having been adopted as text-books in many of 
our leading educational institutions, including Harvard, Cornell, 
Wesleyan, Vermont, and Syracuse Universities; Yale, Princeton, 
Amherst, Dartmouth, Williams, Union, and Smith Colleges; and 
many other colleges, academies, normal and high schools. 



EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY. 

A SERIES OF BOOKS NARRATING THE HISTORY OF 
ENGLAND AND EUROPE AT SUCCESSIVE EPOCHS 
SUBSEQUENT TO THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 

Edited by 

Edward E. Morris. 

Seventeen volumes, i6mo, with 74 Maps, Plans and Tables. 

Sold separately. Price per vol., $1.00. 

The Set, Roxburgh style, gilt top, in box, $17.00. 

THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGES— England and Europe 
in the Ninth Century. By the Very Rev. R. W. Church, M.A. 

THE NORMANS IN EUROPE— The Feudal System and England 
under Norman Kings. By the Rev. A. H. Johnson, M.A. 

THE CRUASDES. By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M.A. 

THE EARLY PLANTAGENETS— Their Relation to the History 
of Europe : The Foundation and Growth of Constitutional 
Government. By the Rev. Wm. Stubbs, M.A. 

EDWARD III. By the Rev. W. Warburton, M.A. 

THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK—The Conquest and 
Loss of France. By James Gairdner. 

THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. By Frederic 
Seebohm. With Notes on Books in English relating to the 
Reformation. By Prof. George P. Fisher, D. D. 

THE EARLY TUDORS. Henry VII. ; Henry VIII. By Rev. C. E. 

Moberly, M.A. 

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. By the Rev. M. Creighton, M.A. 

THE THIRTY YEARS’ WAR, 1618-1648. By Samuel Rawson 
Gardiner. 

THE PURITAN REVOLUTION; and the First Two Stuarts, 
1603-1660. By Samuel Rawson Gardiner. 

THE FALL OF THE STUARTS; and Western Europe. By the 
Rev. Edward Hale, M.A. 

THE AGE OF ANNE. By Edward E. Morris, M.A. 

THE EARLY HANOVERIAN S— Europe from the Peace of Utrecht to 
the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. By Edward E. Morris, M.A. 

FREDERICK THE GREAT AND THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR. By 
F. W. Longman. 

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND FIRST EMPIRE. By William 
O’Connor Morris. With Appendix by Andrew D. White, 
LL.D., ex-President of Cornell University. 

THE EPOCH OF REFORM. 1830-1850. By Justin McCarthy. 


EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 


A SERIES OF BOOKS NARRATING THE HISTORY OF 
GREECE AND ROME, AND OF THEIR RELATIONS TO 
OTHER COUNTRIES AT SUCCESSIVE EPOCHS. 

Edited by 

Rev. G. W. Cox and Charles Sankey, M.A. 

Eleven volumes, i6mo, with 41 Maps and Plans. 

Sold separately. Price per vol., $1.00. 

The Set, Roxburgh style, gilt top, in box, $11.00. 

TROY—ITS LEGEND, HISTORY, AND LITERATURE. By 
S. G. W. Benjamin. 

THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS. By the Rev. G. W. Cox. 

THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE—From the Flight of Xerxes to the 
Fall of Athens. By the Rev. G. W. Cox. 

THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES. By Charles 
Sankey, M.A. 

THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE—Its Rise and Culmination tv. the 
Death of Alexander the Great. By A. M. Curteis, M.A. 

The Jive volumes above give a connected and complete history 
of Greece from the earliest times to the death of Alexander. 

EARLY ROME—From the Foundation of the City to its Destruc' 
tion by the Gauls. By W. Ihne, Ph.D. 

ROME AND CARTHAGE—The Punic Wars. By R. Boswortb 
Smith, M.A. 

THE GRACCHI, MARIUS, AND SULLA. By A. H. Beesly, M.A. 

THE ROMAN TRIUMVIRATES. By the Very Rev. Charles 
Merivale, D.D. 

THE EARLY EMPIRE—From the Assassination of Julius Coesar 
to the Assassination of Domitian. By the Rev. W. Wolfe 
Capes, M.A. 

THE AGE OF THE ANTON INES—the Roman Empire of the 
Second Century. By the Rev. W. Wolfe Capes, M.A. 

The six volumes above give the History of Rome from the 
founding of the City to the death of Marcus A melius Antoninus. 


Just Published 

A NEW VOLUME IN THE SERIES. 


THE EARLY TUDORS—HENRY VII., HENRY VIII. 
By the Rev. C. E. Moberly, M.A., late Master in 
Rugby School. 

With Four Maps. One vol., i6mo, $1.00. 

PRESS COMMENTS. 

“A marvel of clear and succinct brevity and good historical judgment. 
There is hardly a better book of its kind to be named.”— The Independent. 

“ The volume, as a whole, gives a very complete and satisfactory relation 
of the chief events in the history of the early Tudors ; it is concise, scholarly, 
and accurate. On the epoch of which it treats, we know of no work which 
equals it.”— New York Observer. 

“ The book is ably written, and entirely free from sectarian bias.”— New 
York Times. 

“ One of the most interesting and valuable of the whole series. The 
author has evidently had access to original sources, and succeeds in making 
his narrative fresh in matter, while it is fluent and pleasing in style.”— Chicago 
Standard. 

“ * The Early Tudors ’ is well written, and holds its own well in a series of 
which the average is by no means of the ordinary importance merely,”— 
Boston Courier. 

“ One of the most interesting volumes of the admirable collection of 
monographs to which it belongs. The book is in every respect most largely to 
be commended.”— Charleston News and Courier. 

“ Prof Moberly’s sketch possesses great freedom, simplicity, and concise¬ 
ness. The account moves easily from the beginning, giving each crisis its due 
prominence without making the approach formal and heavy, and avoiding 
very skillfully, in the face of much condensation, an effect of crowding.”— 
Brooklyn Times. 

“ As in the other books of the series, compactness and simplicity of style 
have been followed in order to compress the greatest quantity of material within 
the smallest space compatible with the clear and thorough setting forth of the 
subject. This volume shows wide reading and thoughtful study on the part of 
the author, who here presents a remarkably clear and instructive picture of 
the condition of England under the two Henrys.”— Boston Saturday Evening 
Gazette. 


*** The volumes in this series are for sale by all booksellers, or 
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Manual of Mythology 

FOR THE USE OF 

SCHOOLS, ART STUDENTS AND GENERAL READERS, 

HOUNDED ON THE WORKS OF PETISCUS, PRELLER, 

AND WELCKER. 

By ALEXANDER S. MURRAY, 

Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, 

With 45 Plates on tinted paper, representing 1 more than 90 

Mythological Subjects. 


REPRINTED FROM THE SECOND REVISED LONDON EDITION, 


One volume, crown 8vo, $2.25. 

There has long been needed a compact, manageable Manual of 
Mythology, which should be a guide to the Art student and the general 
reader, and at the same time answer the purposes of a school text-book. 
This volume which has been prepared by the Director of the Department 
of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, upon the basis 
of the works of Petiscus, Preller, and Welcker, has had so extensive a 
sale in the English edition, as to prove that it precisely supplies this want. 
This American edition has been reprinted from the latest English edition, 
and contains all the illustrations of the latter, while the chapter tipon 
Eastern Mythology has been carefully revised by Prof. IV. D. Whitney , 
of Yale College. 

N. B.—Teachers wishing to examine this work with a view 
to introducing it as a text-book, will have it sent to them, by 
Jorwarding their address and $1.35. 


* 4 * The above book for sale by all booksellers , or will be sent, Post or ex frees 
•Larges fetid, upon re.eipt of the price by the publishers, 

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743 and 743 Broadway. N«w Vob’ 3 . 








A New Edition , Library Style , 


♦ 

Iftsforg of jEoni?, 

FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE 

By Dr. THEODOR MOMMSEN. 

Translated, with the author’s sanction and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Regitu 
Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical Examiner of 
the University of St. Andrews. With an introduction by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, and 
a copious Index of the whole four volumes, prepared especially for this edition. 

REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION. 

Four Volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per Set, $8.00. 

» 

Dr. Mommsen has long been known and appreciated through his re¬ 
searches into the languages, laws, and institutions of Ancient Rome and 
Italy, as the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these depart¬ 
ments of historical investigation. To a wonderfully exact and exhaustive 
knowledge of these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a 
vigorous, spirited, and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical pow¬ 
ers, which give this history a degree of interest and a permanent value 
possessed by no other record of the decline and fall of the Roman Com¬ 
monwealth. “ Dr. Mommsen’s work,” as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the 
introduction, “ though the production of a man of most profound and ex¬ 
tensive learning and knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for 
the professional scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take 
an interest in the history of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek 
information that m^«y guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of 
modern history.” 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

“ A work of the very highest merit; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative full 
of genius and skill; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place on 
record our opinion that Dr. Mommsen’s is by far the best history of the Decline and F„'U 
of the Roman Commonwealth.” — London Times. 

“ This is the best history of the Roman Republic, taking the work on the whole — the 
juthor’s complete mastery of his subject, the variety of his gifts and acquirements, his 
graphic power in the delineation of national and individual character, and the vivid interest 
which he inspiresin every portion of his book. He is without an equal in his own sphere.” 
— Edinburgh Review. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New Yoke- 




A New Edition , Library Style . 


Ifisfopg of Cjrpprp. 

By Prof. Dr. ERNST 0URTIUS. 

Ti^nslated by Adolphus William Ward, M. A., Fellow of St. Peter’s College, Cara 
bridge, Prof, of History in Owen’s College, Manchester. 

UNIFORM WITH MOMMSEN’S HISTORY OF ROME. 

.five volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per set, $10.00. 



- 1 - 

Curtius’s History of Greece is similar in plan and pmpose to Mommsen’s 
History of Rome , with which it deserves to rank in every respect as one of 
the great masterpieces of historical literature. Avoiding the minute de¬ 
tails which overburden other similar works, it groups together in a very 
picturesque manner all the important events in the history of this king¬ 
dom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world’s 
civilization. The narrative of Prof. Curtius’s work is flowing and ani¬ 
mated, and the generalizations, although bold, are philosophical and 
sound. 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

“ Professor Currrus’s eminent scholarship is a sufficient guarantee for the trustworthiness 
of his history, while the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of narrat¬ 
ing them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. Prof. Curtius evetywhere 
maintains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are 
on the side of justice, humanity, and progress.” —London Athenceum. 

“ We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius’s book better than by saying that it may 
be fitly ranked with Theodor Mommsen’s great work.” — London Spectator. 

“As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to 
the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of 
statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the 
age.” — N. Y. Daily Tribune. 

“ The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of 
the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instruct¬ 
ive branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts 
for their education. This translation ought to become a regular part of the accepted course 
of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political 
life of our country.” — N. Y. Evening Post. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York 






T: 2 ORIGIN OF NATIONS 

By Professor GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. 


One Volume , 12mo. With maps , . . . $1.00 . 


The first part of this book, Early Civilizations, discusses the antiquity 
of civilization in Egypt and the other early nations of the East. The 
second part, Ethnic Affinities in the Ancient World, is an examination of 
the ethnology of Genesis, showing its accordance with the latest results of 
modern ethnographical science. 


“ An attractive volume, which is well worthy of the careful consideration of every 
reader. ”— Observer. 

“A work of genuine scholarly excellence, and a useful offset to a great deal of the 
superficial current literature on such subjects.”— Congregationalist. 

“ Dr. Rawlinson brings to this discussion long and patient research, a vast knowledge 
and intimate acquaintance with what has been written on both sides of the question.”— 

Brooklyn Union-Argus. 




THE DAWN OF HISTORY. 

AN INTRODUCTION TO PRE-HISTORIC STUDY. 

Edited by C. F. KEARY, M. A., 

OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 

One Volume, 12mo., - - - $1.2 5. 

This work treats successively of the earliest traces of man in the 
remains discovered in caves or elsewhere in different parts of Europe ; of 
language, its growth, and the story it tells of the pre-historic users of it; 
of the races of mankind, early social life, the religions, mythologies, and 
folk-tales of mankind, and of the history of writing. A list of authorities 
is appended, and an index has been prepared specially for this edition. 


“The book maybe heartily recommended as probably the most satisfactory summary 
of the subject that there is.”— Nation. 

“ A fascinating manual, without a vestige of the dullness usually charged against 
scientific works. . . . In its way, the work is a model of what a popular scientific 

work should be ; it is readable, it is easily understood, and its style is simple, yet dig¬ 
nified, avoiding equally the affectation of the nursery and of the laboratory.”— 

Boston Sat. Eve. Gazette. 


*** For sale by all booksellers , or sent , post-paid , upon receipt of 
price , by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 

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